Walter Mswazie Masvingo Correspondent
THE government has started collecting rentals from A1 and A2 farmers as a way of raising funds to compensate white farmers from whom farms were acquired for the land reform programme. Lands and Rural Resettlement Minister Douglas Mombeshora said the government was expecting to raise about $22 million from the rentals per annum.

He said the programme has already started in all provinces throughout the country.

“We have started collecting rentals. I’m happy that in some provinces farmers have started paying, taking heed to the government directive. Every A1 and 2 farmer is expected to comply with this directive without fail,” Mombeshora told The Chronicle.

The minister said his ministry will use part of the expected $22 million rental money to compensate white farmers while 60 percent of it will be used for other programmes.

He said farmers should wean themselves from heavily depending on the government and using State land without remitting anything.

“Those who cannot pay the rentals should surrender farms to others who have the capacity to be productive and be able to honour their obligations,” said Mombeshora.

He said the government would not hurry all farmers in paying the rentals because they harvest their crops at different times but said all should have complied by year end.

He said the government will carry out regular assessments of farms.

“There are farmers who are giving excuses and I say those are lame excuses because there is no reason why a productive farmer can fail to pay $10 or $15 per year per hectare. One has the opportunity to make his 1,000 hectares of land very productive if he is serious in taking farming as a business. It’s against this background that government would not entertain such excuses.

“This programme has Cabinet approval and there is no going back. Those farmers who cannot pay rentals should surrender their farms to others who are serious,” said Mombeshora.

He said every farmer is obliged to pay the rentals and the ministry was working out ways to allow farmers who are distant from Ministry of Lands offices to use mobile cash transactions.

Mombeshora said in some countries, there are large tracts of land under desert but farmers are still able to produce enough.

“We’ve Israel as our case study. The country has vast tracts of land under desert but they have established a green belt there. They are exporting crops to almost every country in Europe,” said the minister.

The Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement will collect the cash from rentals and transfer it to the relevant ministry.

Farmers in Masvingo have started paying for their farms at the ministry offices in the provincial capital, an official said.

A1 farmers pay $2 per year per hectare while A2 farm owners pay $3 per year per ha and $2 unit tax.

The rentals will be an addition to the $1 farmers are already paying to rural district councils as unit tax.

An official said apart from the purposes of compensation, the rentals will assist in the financing of periodic land audits by the government.