White farmers may be allowed back on their land in Zimbabwe as part of a plan by the government of Robert Mugabe to solve the country’s deepening economic crisis.
The president’s key finance aide has called for some of the farmers whose properties were confiscated in a land-seizure programme to be allowed to resume growing crops to boost the country’s flagging agricultural output.
Gideon Gono, Governor of the Reserve Bank and Mugabe’s main policy-maker, made the proposal as he announced a 31% devaluation of the Zimbabwe currency.
”In order to ensure maximum productivity levels, there is great scope in the country promoting and supporting joint ventures between the new farmers with progressive-minded former operators,” said Gono in a state radio and television broadcast that lasted nearly three hours.
He added that the skilled whites and other new investors will be given special guarantees of uninterrupted tenure of five to 10 years, backed by government force to prevent any disruptions on the farms.
Gono was careful to say that the process will not reverse Mr Mugabe’s redistribution of white-owned land to blacks.
However, observers say his plan will be an implicit admission that the land-seizure policy has failed.
A Zimbabwean economist, John Robertson, said: ”This shows the desperation of the government to improve the economy. They say it is not a reversal of their land seizures, but it is. It won’t get very far.
”I don’t think many farmers will take up the offer because they would have to give up their title deeds and lease their land back.
”The range of measures proposed by Gono and the government show that the economic situation is dire. But they are avoiding the fundamental changes needed because those would be opposed by Mugabe. These measures don’t add up. The economy will continue to be a disaster area.”
At the start of the land seizure policy in 2000, Zimbabwe had 4 500 white farmers; now about 400 remain on portions of their farms. Mozambique, Zambia and Nigeria have welcomed some of the skilled white farmers.
The economy has also shrunk by more than 40% in five years.
On Friday, Mugabe did not comment on Gono’s proposal.
During the election campaign in March, the president said he was disappointed that only 44% of the land seized from whites was being cultivated and that the remainder was lying fallow.
He has also had to admit that Zimbabwe, once called ”the breadbasket of Africa”, needs to import food to feed its population. For months, he had boasted that the country had a bumper harvest and would ”choke” if it was forced to take international food aid.
But Mugabe said this week that his government will welcome food from the United Nations, as long as it comes without any political conditions.
The government announced on Friday that it is busy redrawing its 2005 Budget to fund food imports.
Drastic cuts to other parts of the Budget will be needed to raise the money to import food, the acting Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, said, according to Reuters.
On Thursday, the government devalued its currency and banned imports of luxury goods to try to reduce the economic freefall. But the devaluation falls far short of the Z$25 000 that $1 fetches on Zimbabwe’s thriving black market.
Gono reduced by half his forecasts of the country’s economic growth, to 2,5%. That figure is viewed as unrealistic by economists, who point out the five consecutive years of economic decline.
John Worsley-Worswick, of Justice for Agriculture, said: ”This is a puppet show and it’s not going to solve things. Gono is a master of spin and he is saying that he can fix things. But the reality is that the few farmers who have managed to stay on their land are being hammered by the military.
”This suggestion that white farmers could come back is an admission of their failure, but I don’t know anyone who would take them up on their offer. The government’s agriculture policy has failed abysmally. There is no maize, there is no wheat, people are hungry. It’s a debacle.” — Guardian Unlimited Â