|
Zim land reform here to stay
12/05/2006 17:15 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe will never reverse its controversial land reform programme even though some new black farmers are not using the land they have been allocated, a top government minister was quoted as saying on Friday.
"It is foolish to think that we will reverse the land reform programme," Lands and State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
He said he had held meetings with the white-dominated Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) and "we have never given the impression that we will return commercial farms to them." The CFU says that 200 white farmers have applied for leases from the government so that they can rent back properties.
Mutasa's comments came a day after farming pressure group Justice for Agriculture (JAG) - which broke away from the main union at the height of Mugabe's white land seizures - claimed more than 20 white farmers had been chased off their farms in the last four weeks.
Before land reform was launched in 2000, more than 4 000 white farmers held most of Zimbabwe's most fertile land. Since then all but a few hundred have been told to vacate their properties, but there has been a massive drop in agricultural production, which worries the authorities.
Mutasa hit out at "errant" new farmers who were selling farm equipment and farmhouses as well as renting out land they were allocated by the government. He warned they could "lose their properties," the Herald said.
Government officials are currently carrying out an audit of large-scale farms to determine how well they are being used.
"It does not, however, mean that we will take land from blacks who did not possess land to resettle whites. But we will take land from whites to resettle blacks," Mutasa told the newspaper. According to an earlier official report, only 30% of agricultural land given to new farmers was not being used productively. - Sapa-dpa
|
News
Zimbabwe Special Report
