The Zimbabwe government has paid out Z$441-billion ($4,4-million) to 206 white farmers whose lands were seized under the land-reform programme, money which the farmers criticise as being too little, reports said on Friday.
The total works out at an average of Z$2,1-billion ($21 000) per farmer at the government’s official rate of exchange.
To date, Z$303-billion has been spent on compensation for permanent improvements and Z$138-billion has been spent on the compensation of equipment and material, Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa said in the state-controlled Herald daily.
According to the paper, the money has been paid out in the last six months as Zimbabwe’s local currency continued its downward slide.
More than 4 000 white farmers have lost their farms since President Robert Mugabe launched his controversial land reforms six years ago. Under Zimbabwe’s laws, the government only has to pay farmers for buildings and equipment, and not for the land.
News of the amounts being paid will stir up bitter feelings among dispossessed white farmers, the privately owned Financial Gazette warned.
These days Z$2-billion will not buy a house in a low-income Harare township like Kuwadzana. Homes in the capital’s well-heeled northern suburbs, such as Highlands and Chisipite, are going for at least ten times that figure.
The Financial Gazette said only near-destitute white farmers had accepted the government’s offers of compensation.
Sources said the rest of the white farmers are still trying to persuade the Land Reform Ministry to improve on the money being offered, the paper reported.
Foreign landowners
Earlier this week, Mutasa said foreign landowners in Zimbabwe will be allowed to appeal against the seizure of their farms in court — an apparent bid to calm outside investors.
He told diplomats in Harare that recent amendments to the Constitution that block white farmers from such appeals do not apply to farms protected by government-to-government agreements, state television reported.
Mutasa said the foreign-owned farms can still be acquired by the government, but the landowners will be paid compensation ”in the currency of the owner’s choice”.
”Because of the national demand for land, in those unavoidable cases where land [protected by bilateral agreements] has to be acquired, compensation has to be paid in full and in the currency of the owner’s choice for both land and improvements [to the land],” Mutasa told the diplomats.
A special committee has been set up to look into the seizure of farms covered by country-to-country agreements.
Offer rejected
Meanwhile, about 200 displaced white farmers from Mashonaland West province have turned down an offer of farms by the government, saying there is no guarantee the government will not in future turn back on the offer and evict them again, independent news service ZimOnline reported this week.
Authoritative sources said Mashonaland West provincial governor Nelson Samkange offered the farmers new farms in the wheat-producing area of Tengwe, which lies in his province about 260km north-west of Harare.
Samkange, who, according to sources, had permission from Mugabe’s office to give back land to ”whites willing to work with the government”, had wanted the farmers back in Tengwe by May 20 in time to be able to plant a winter wheat crop.
The plan to bring back white farmers to Tengwe collapsed after ruling Zanu-PF party militants chased away a white farmer, Justin Boddy, from his farm near Tengwe at the same time that Samkange’s office was trying to convince the farmers that it would be safe to return, according to ZimOnline. — Sapa-dpa, ZimOnline