eBusiness Weekly
Golden Sibanda
Government will pay fair compensation for both land and improvements on all farms falling under the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs) in line with obligations enshrined in the country’s Constitution, Finance and Economic Planning Minister Patrick Chinamasa has said.
However, in terms of land falling outside of the BIPPAs, the Government will only pay for improvements, in recognition of the principle and legal provision that all land belongs to the State.
During the land reform programme to resettle landless people initiated two decades ago, part of the land held under BIPPAs was taken for purposes of resettling landless Zimbabweans.
However, agreements under BIPPA require that Government pay fair compensation in currency of the former owner’s choice for land and improvements. Zimbabwe signed and ratified BIPPAs with several countries across the world among them Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Malaysia and Switzerland.
Minister Chinamasa said in an interview that Government had started evaluating land it compulsorily acquired from white former commercial farmers for redistribution to the landless majority, including acquired land falling under (BIPPAs), in order to compensate affected parties in terms of Zimbabwe’s laws.
An estimated 4 000 farmers had their farms compulsorily acquired by Government without compensation, but efforts to challenge the process in Zimbabwe failed, some “successfully” sued for compensation in international courts.
Prior to the land reform programme, most indigenous people and farmers eked a living out of working unproductive farms crammed and located in areas at times not fit for human habitation and with very low rainfall.
Commenting after an analysis by Government of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Amendment (ZIDERA) Act, Minister Chinamasa said the evaluation will also result in the Government issuing land title to the 350 000 families who were allocated land under the fast track land reform, which started in 2000. This comes after United States President Donald Trump, signed the amended ZIDERA into law early August after Congress had passed the legislation in July. The House of Commons had discussed the Bill earlier in March.
The original ZIDERA was passed into law just after the turn of the century in 2001 and is believed to be responsible for decimating 50 percent of Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product (GDP) over nearly a decade to 2008.
Minister Chinamasa made the remarks as he also rebuffed insinuations that Government was or intended to appropriate public assets, asserting that only farms had been appropriated for purposes of resettling the landless black majority.
This is one of issues, the Minister said, for which Government will seek dialogue with the United States to obtain clarity on what Washington referred to as “private appropriation of public assets”, listed in the new ZIDERA as one of Congress findings for failure by Zimbabwe to participate in World Bank programmes.
Minister Chinamasa said other issues the Government wanted to clear the air with the US included its demands for Zimbabwe to acknowledge past human rights abuses and to account for missing persons, such as human rights activists Itai Dzamara, Itai Nabanyana and Paul Chizuze, which the US wants an inquiry into.
Compensation for land and improvements
“We are in the process, in pursuance of the allocation of that land, of providing security of tenure to the 350 000 beneficiaries of the land we acquired under the land reform programme. We want to give the new beneficiaries security of tenure.
“With respect to the persons we compulsorily acquired the land from; we are addressing this issue through Constitutional provisions, which requires us to pay compensation. In appropriate cases, with regard to land protected under BIPPA, we have a Constitutional obligation to pay for both land and improvements, but any land outside BIPPA we only pay compensation for improvements,” the Minister said.
He said Government was in the process of quantifying the value of compensations for both compulsorily acquired land from white former commercial farmers and land protected under BIPPAs, which Government reposed for redistribution to locals.
“We will then come up with a programme to mobilize the necessary resources to pay compensation over a period of time,” he said.
Harare addresses US’ demands
The minister said Government appreciated the US pledge to support Zimbabwe’s arrears clearance efforts undertaken through the multilateral development banks, stressing that Harare had since satisfied a number of issues Washington raised in the amended two decades old economic sanctions embargo.
These included pre-election conditions regarding public release of the voters’ role, independence of ZEC and its interaction with all political parties, the role of the army and requirement to respect human rights and freedom and need to allow international and regional observers to freely cover national elections.
Most observers who were stationed in Zimbabwe for the July 30, 2018 harmonized elections, won by ZANU-PF and its Presidential Candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa, certified the watershed polls free and fair.
An attempts by the main opposition MDC-Alliance’s presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa, who came second with 44,3 percent of the vote to President Mnangagwa’s 50,67 percent, to challenge the outcome of plebiscite at the Constitutional Court alleging fraud by electoral body ZEC fell on its head.
In fact, Government said all conditions demanded by Washington for conduct of free and fair elections had been largely satisfied and Harare will seek dialogue with the world economic giant to clarify this position. The US also demanded that Government upholds and implements the Constitution and demonstrate commitment to sustained reformation of the economy in ways that promote economic growth and create jobs.
Minister Chinamasa said while economic reforms, as proposed by Washington, would be sustained, this would never be an event, but a process that Government will continue to implement over a period of time.
