Minister Shamu
Walter Nyamukondiwa Mashonaland West Bureau
Mashonaland West Province is conducting an assessment of all illegal settlements and attendant land disputes, which are having a negative impact on production. This, coupled with an assessment of productive use of the land, is tailored to boost production and revive downstream industries.
It comes as Government seeks to identify opportunities for quick turnaround and delivery in the economy in 100 days. In an interview on the sidelines of a tour of Aysher Farm and Rize Milling Company in Banket, Minister of State for Mashonaland West Cde Webster Shamu said the land disputes had to be resolved urgently, while land should be used productively.
“The issue of land disputes is a very serious negative factor to production,” he said. “It looks like we have allowed the contradictions to manifest themselves without resolving the issues at hand in a manner that ensures that our farmers can be able to be productive on the land.” The province, said Cde Shamu, was faced with a lot of challenges related to boundary disputes, illegal settlers and indiscipline. He said some of the indiscipline bordered on anarchy, before vowing to bring sanity in the resettlement process.
“We are in the process right now of carrying out an inventory in the seven administrative districts in Mashonaland West province,” said Cde Shamu. “We have serious illegal settler problems.”
In some instances, he said, people had been benefiting financially, riding on the name of the ruling party, Zanu-PF. The behaviour, Cde Shamu said, was negatively impacting on the aims and objectives of the party and Government. He said Government was on the trajectory of production and economic revival, which required a stable environment.
At Aysher Farm, a land dispute was raging, which resulted in two tractors belonging to different people working on the same piece of land. At least 26 members of Aysher Syndicate are in dispute with six people who claim ownership of plots on the farm.
The offer letters of all the 32 people settled on the farm were withdrawn, but the High Court ruled that production should continue, while issues of ownership were being addressed. With irrigation infrastructure to irrigate 1 500 hectares of the more than 2 000ha on the farm, production has dropped drastically. Minister Shamu said irrigation at the farm should be resuscitated urgently .
“This is one of many farms which have such strategic infrastructure which need to be looked at to come up with strategies to ensure that water bodies are fully utilised,” he said. The irrigation system requires replacement of vandalised 1 000KVA and 300KVA transformers, pumps and clearing of canals. Such farms, Cde Shamu said, needed to be capacitated.
Some industries, including Rize Milling Company in Banket, have stopped production owing to a shortage of raw materials such as wheat, which have been partly blamed on land disputes.
The company used to employ 100 workers, process 25 000 tonnes of wheat into flour a year, while baking 25 000 loaves of bread everyday. Owing to a shortage of raw materials, the company mothballed its plants in 2013, throwing scores of people onto the streets. Rize managing director Mr Roy Linfield said it became unviable to keep the plants running as raw materials became scarce.
“We started experiencing challenges of raw material supplies and we eventually closed in 2013,” he said. “We tried to import from countries such as Mozambique and Turkey, but it became unviable.”