A Zambian bank has given more than $30-million to white Zimbabwean farmers re-settling in Zambia, state media reported on Monday.
Peter Mclean, managing director of Standard Chartered Bank, said the money was disbursed between January and December last year. However, he could not state how many Zimbabwean farmers had received the loans, the Zambia Daily Mail reported.
”The bank has given loans to farmers who were clients of Stanchart Zimbabwe and were identified as they moved to Zambia,” he said.
This comes at a time when black Zambian farmers are struggling to obtain agriculture loans and other credit facilities from local banks because of exceedingly high interest rates and other conditions they fail to meet.
Scores of white farmers from Zimbabwe have been moving into Zambia to set up commercial tourism and farming blocs in the southern and central parts of the country after the Zimbabwean government of President Robert Mugabe seized land belonging to white commercial farmers.
The Zambian government said it has no special policy to re-settle Zimbabwean farmers despite a major policy shift to turn a copper mining driven economy to an agriculture-based economy.
Land Minister Judith Kapijipanga said Zimbabwean farmers were welcome to set up agriculture activities in Zambia, but they would receive no special preference, the newspaper report said. – Sapa-DPA