Zimbabwe’s land seizures have escalated with the government’s confiscation of the country’s largest sugar producer, Hippo Valley.
The vast estate in the south-eastern corner of the country annually produces 236 000 tonnes of sugar, said to be worth about R519-million.
Hippo Valley covers nearly 70 000ha and employs 6 000 full-time workers and 4 000 seasonal workers. With the Triangle sugar estate it produces all of Zimbabwe’s sugar and exports large amounts to neighbouring countries.
Industrial plantations producing sugar, coffee, tea and timber had been exempt from President Robert Mugabe’s seizures of white-owned farms, but an amendment to the Land Acquisition Act relaxed requirements to allow the government to confiscate the huge developments.
South Africa’s mining giant, Anglo American, has the controlling share of Hippo Valley. ”Hippo Valley estates have been designated and legal objections have been lodged with appropriate authorities,” said a spokesperson for Anglo American in Johannesburg. ”Hippo management is in discussion with the local lands committee officials.”
South African President Thabo Mbeki now faces either standing up for the property rights of Anglo American, South Africa’s largest corporation, or remaining silent on Mugabe’s land seizures.
”The success of President Mbeki’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development rests upon a predictable investment climate,” said Iden Wetherell, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent. ”The arbitrary confiscation of productive sugar estates, the product of years and years of investment and hard work, completely sabotages that initiative and Mbeki should be the first to say so.”
Zimbabwe’s sugar industry has developed since 1964, and Hippo Valley represents a vast investment to make the country self-sufficient in sugar.
Its complex network of irrigation canals and the huge refinery plant are some of the biggest of their kind in Africa. There is speculation as to what the government intends to do with the estate.
One business analyst said: ”If the government is going to hand it over to the state’s agricultural and rural development authority, then we know it will be a disaster. Everything it has taken over has failed.” — Â