ZANU-PF has conceded that it erred by engaging in the
"chaotic" land reform exercise in 2000 where it parcelled out
commercial land to its supporters without following procedure.
The ruling party yesterday said this had prompted the
process of compensating farmers who were kicked off their farms.
Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, acting party
spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa conceded that the land reform programme was chaotic,
saying the move to compensate the farmers was a constitutional requirement of
righting the wrong.
"Pajambanja ipapo, takaita zvainge zvisingafaniri kuti
tiite (we did something that we were not supposed to do during the chaotic land
redistribution exercise)," Chinamasa said.
"We took land from those who had bought their own land
and settled our people.
"The people are still there, but the Constitution says
if there is such an issue, we compensate for the land and the improvements. If
the previous owner then says he wants the land back, not money, we will give
him back the land which we took and gave to A2 farmers."
At the turn of the millennium, Zanu-PF led a chaotic land
reform programme which the late former President Robert Mugabe said was meant
to address colonial land imbalances.
The land reform programme saw over 4 000 white commercial
farmers being displaced.
Some black farmers and those whose land was protected under
Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs) were also
evicted.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government on Monday
announced that government would compensate black farmers who lost their land
during the land reform exercise .
Farmers whose land was protected under the BIPPAs will also
be compensated.
Both can choose to reapply to go back on their previously
owned land, a move that will likely trigger mass displacements of some of the
beneficiaries of the land reform programme, the majority of them combatants of
the 1970s liberation war.
The new order came after Mnangagwa, on July 20, signed a
pact to compensate white former commercial farmers for the improvements they
made on the farms they were displaced from.
Mnangagwa's latest decision caused anxiety among even his
followers in the ruling party, with most, particularly war veterans, accusing
him of trying to reverse the land reform programme.
In his Press briefing, Chinamasa said: "Where we
settled our people on land previously owned by a black indigenous Zimbabwean
and the land was parcelled out into A2 or A1 farms, the Constitution obliges us
to pay full compensation to that black person for land and any improvement on
the farm.
"In the case where the land was not settled, but
gazetted we are saying we restore to that person titles of the farm which we
compulsorily acquired through the jambanja process. We restore it to that black
person. That must be made very clear.
"On the land that fell under BIPPA, the Constitution
is very clear also because under BIPPA we were under obligation to pay
compensation for both land and improvements and our Constitution providees
exactly for that.
"If any land under BIPPA was affected by jambanja and
we settled our people, we are obliged to pay compensation for both land and
improvements."
Chinamasa said for the land seized from white former
commercial farmers, the government was only obliged to pay for improvements and
not the land.
He added that the announcement by government to compensate
the former farmers had caused confusion in and outside the party.
"The party has noted that the contents of that
statement, ( jointly issued by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube and Agriculture
minister Anxious Masuka), has caused confusion among our people on the policy
of Zanu-PF regarding the land question," Chinamasa said.
He said the MDC Alliance and its allies should not lecture
Zanu-PF on the land redistribution exercise, in apparent reference to
opposition party vice-president Tendai Biti who has described the move as
reversing the land reform programme.
"We will never allow anyone to lecture us. We have
never taken an inch of any soil anywhere in the world. There was a moment we
had to take a step back in order to take two steps forward and we will not
allow them to lecture us on these things."
Chinamasa said the government took the decision to grab
land from the white former commercial farmers after the United Kingdom, through
then Prime Minister Tony Blair, refused to pay compensation to the affected
farmers as previously agreed.
He accused Blair and the Westminster Foundation of
financing the opposition MDC, hence the decision to engage in the land grab.
"Zanu-PF is gravely concerned at the emerging trends
over land that was acquired and distributed under the land reform programme. Of
particular interest is the tendency by the beneficiaries of A2 farms to lease
out those farms in return for rent," Chinamasa said.
Meanwhile, Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi was yesterday
also grilled in the National Assembly by Biti over the land issue .
"The Constitution is very clear in section 295(4) that
compensation can only be payable if there is an Act of Parliament," Biti
said.
"So on what legal basis was that agreement executed
when there is no Act of Parliament to define the agreement and the methods of
payment, as well as the implications of that on the Consolidated Revenue Fund
because it was approved outside Parliament?"
But Ziyambi denied that the government was reversing the
land reform programme.
He said the Constitution stipulated that there be
compensation for both land and improvements on the farms.
"It is not true that we need an Act of Parliament to
do that because we have the Land Acquisition Act, which has provisions for
that. In any case, if we decide to use taxpayers' money, then the appropriation
will be approved by Parliament," Ziyambi said.
Biti insisted that taking land from resettled black people
was a reversal of the land reform programme.
Magwegwe legislator Anele Ndebele (MDC Alliance) asked
Ziyambi to make the land audit results public to bring closure to the land
issue, to which the Justice minister said that would be done. Newsday
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