Mashonaland Central’s Mazowe District
lands committee yesterday resolved to identity large and underutilised farms
for redistribution.
This follows an address by President
Emmerson Mnangagwa in Mvuma recently where he said big farms should be
downsized to enable more people to benefit from land redistribution.
Some of the farms include the 205-hectare
Elephant Trust Farm underutilisation, 1 800 hectare Chadsley Farm and Protea
Farm, which has 1 061 hectares.
Speaking at the lands committee meeting at
Mazowe Rural District Council last week, the district lands officer Mr Mark
Kadaira said Chief Makope, Chief Nembire and Member of Parliament for Mazowe
South Cde Fortune Chasi, among other people, did not have farms.
He added that rampant squatting, which was
rife in the area, would only be addressed through redistribution of land.
“There is an issue of illegal settlers at
Jumbo Mine and we need to find alternative land for those people,” said Mr
Kadaira. “We are hopeful that through the downsizing of farms exercise, we will
get adequate land to relocate people at Manzou Farm and give them a hectare
each.
“In 2002 and 2004, A2 farmers were given
land without offer letters; we want them to get the letters.”
Chairperson of the provincial lands
committee and Minister of State for Provincial Affairs Advocate Martin Dinha
said district lands committees, which were disbanded were crucial and had
started functioning.
“District lands committees were no longer
functional due to lack of cooperation from the relevant ministry,” he said.
“Under the new dispensation of President Mnangagwa and the Minister of Lands,
Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Retired Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri,
they now meet every week to deal with land issues.
“We want an audit on all the land
distributed last year. The issues here are that people were given offer letters
for already occupied land, people were resettled around dams.
“Correct those mistakes and we want a
progress report. We want a proper land allocation process. We want the list of
farms you want to downsize, you heard what the President said in Mvuma.
“We will downsize to below 450 hectares
and also according to the production record of the farmer. This is the last
phase of the land reform programme, we want to get to the production stage and
we cannot continue allocating land.”
A Namibian based investor Mr Fungai
Mushangwe approached the committee with a cattle ranching proposal.
“I am here to support command livestock
and I want to import Boer goats and other cattle breeds to support other
farmers,” he said. Herald
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