Zim: Top cop now land boss

2005-05-13 14:54

Harare - President Robert Mugabe has appointed Didymus Mutasa, the head of the country's secret police, to oversee Zimbabwe's controversial land redistribution programme, the government said on Friday.

State radio said Mutasa, head of the Central Intelligence Organisation, would have authority over Flora Buka, who last month was named minister of state for special affairs for lands and resettlement. The land redistribution programme has been dogged by allegations of favouritism and corruption, with ruling Zanu-PF party moguls obtaining more than one farm.

Alleged scandals have caused deep divisions in a ruling party already riven by factions supporting different candidates to succeed Mugabe, 81, who has indicated he will retire at the end of his current term in 2008.

Misheck Sibanda, chief secretary to Mugabe's cabinet, said the adjustment of cabinet responsibilities means Mutasa will work closely with the presidency in overseeing all matters relating to the acquisition, distribution and settlement of land under the program.

He said Buka's role would stress field-based monitoring of land reform related settlement.

The plan aims to resettle 240 000 families on former white owned land, covering 17% of the country. Much of the farms have become derelict because many owners failed to take up holdings they were allocated.

Millions of people may need food aid

Zimbabwe's agricultural production has crashed, leading to food shortages and falling exports of cash crops such as tobacco. Current United Nations estimates suggest 5.5 million people may need food relief to survive until the next harvests in 2006, despite Mugabe's predictions of "bumper harvests".

Mugabe last year appointed a commission chaired by former cabinet secretary Charles Utete which "expressed concern over multiple farm ownership".

Mutasa, 70, was appointed to conduct a shake-up in the Central Intelligence Organisation, Zimbabwe's secret police, after five leading ruling party members were detained on allegations of spying for the South African government.

Mutasa's new post will give him control of Mugabe's sole remaining source of patronage in a foundering national economy. Given responsibility in the 1980s for overseeing Mugabe's abortive plans to introduce a one party state, Mutasa is a veteran Mugabe loyalist from the eastern Manicaland area.

- AP