Dear Farmer,
Since congress I have been to S.A. twice for two reasons – our legal route and our pension drive.
By now you would have picked up that the SADC Tribunal is under review and that in the next 6 months the SADC member states through their Justice ministries will come back with recommendations on the way forward. Only time will tell how this will impact on the Zimbabwean farmer in the future, I believe the rulings that were made in our favor will always support or benefit us in some way.
The Zimbabwean government has lodge an appeal against the registration of the SADC ruling in South Africa and this case would probably be heard early next year and would be a very interesting and important case for our future. Afriforum will be dealing with this once again on our behalf, although it is delaying some of our legal efforts a ruling in our favor could speed up the process and this court case will be followed with a lot of interest not only by us but other interested parties as well as the media.
The Zimbabwean government has decided to go for a settlement with the German bank KFW Gruppe and offered to repay the 40m Euros, this settlement will take place in court on the 8 Oct 2010. Our legal team is strategizing on our way forward with this in mind, they are also currently busy with a court case regarding compensation for a S.A. National and with a number of S.A. Nationals who are still farming. I can only say that some success were achieved with S.A. farmers still on their land, pressure from the S.A. Embassy and a visit by them this week to farmers are positive signs although ……..early days…………… Will let you know more about this when I do get feedback on these visits.
Willie Spies and myself met with Social Welfare in August and although this meeting was generally positive we are still facing some red tape or legislation issues, Willie was tasked to write a letter to the minister of Welfare re these issues. At this point we can register any S.A. National for pension who has moved back to S.A., we are now dealing with the issue re S.A. Nationals still in Zimbabwe and Willie will get back to me on any progress. Details on how to register for this pension if you are living in S.A. will be made available soon. Any members who would like to be relocated back to S.A., the offer is still standing in terms of free relocation and to be put up in a home and pension, please feel free to contact my office for more details. My feeling is that we have covered 50%, we do have our members in S.A. now covered in terms of pension and a roof, the next 50% will be driven as hard as we can over the next couple of weeks. The next two weeks the CFU presidium will be touring the country and I will try and attend most of these meetings and would explain more in detail at these meetings. Please feel free to come and see me regarding the pension issue, for some the situation has become very desperate but it is also a very personal issue and there for difficult to discuss the issue in an email format. I will certainly help where possible and at least we can discuss the options available.
Today was our first meeting to get a S.A. club registered for S.A. Nationals in Zimbabwe, you will soon receive details about this and I believe this will create a platform for us to achieve a lot more for S.A. Nationals based in Zimbabwe, this club will be open to any S.A. National based in Zimbabwe, please support this drive, more details on how to register and why to form this club will follow next week.
Mooi loop.
Louis