| CFU crashlands! . . . To engage Britain over land, sanctions, To source funds for compensation |  |
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| Sunday, 29 September 2013 00:00 |
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Cde Savanhu Memory Chinguwa and Kuda Bwititi
The CFU leadership expressed eagerness to work with President Mugabe and the Zanu-PF Government as well as removing historical conflict in the country.
In a major twist to the history of the land reform programme, the union, which in the past has been anti-Zanu-PF as it was being used in efforts to effect regime change in the country by sourcing funds for the MDC, also intends to engage international financiers to fund the local agriculture sector in terms of a proposed scheme that they want to use so that the remaining white-occupied farms are spared from compulsory acquisition.
However, analysts have warned that the proposals by CFU should be treated with caution while others have dismissed them outright as retrogressive to the historic and highly successful land reform programme.
CFU president Mr Charles Taffs has since approached Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe leader Archbishop Johannes Ndanga to facilitate dialogue with Government.
Reacting to the proposals yesterday, Deputy Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement Cde Tendai Savanhu said his ministry was open to dialogue.
“We are yet to receive any proposals from the CFU. However, as the ministry, we are open to dialogue with anyone on issues that advance the land reform exercise,” he said.
In its tentative model captured both in print and on DVD, the CFU proposes the compensation of former commercial farmers whose properties were repossessed under the Land Reform Programme.
The former land occupants and those whose properties are yet to be acquired for redistribution would then use the 5 300 title deeds they are still holding onto to seek international funding for local agriculture.
This funding would be channelled through a proposed Land Bank from which local farmers can draw capital.
Part of the model reads: “The first step in the proposal is that the Zimbabwe Government will acknowledge the debt owed to the former farmers as compensation to their farms.
“For every title deed held by former farmers, bonds will be issued to a value corresponding to the value of the farm. The bonds will be internationally underwritten and managed by an internationally-recognised accountancy firm.
“These bonds will be tradeable, interest-bearing and will be renewed over 10 years in annual instalments. Because they are underwritten, these bonds have value and they can be used as collateral to get loans.
“This allows former farmers to invest money right back into the economy, starting new businesses and generating new jobs. In summary, the issue of bonds will monetise lost value and put it back into the economy. Once bonds are issued, the title deeds held by former farmers will be ceded to the Land Bank.
“These 5 300 title deeds will capacitate the Land Bank and will be uncontested. They will have monetary value and will be offered for sale to the current beneficiaries on the land. These beneficiaries will receive credit lines on cheap terms from the Land Bank as the land will have collateral value and the land market will have been recreated. “The Land Bank will receive start-up initial finance from donors and international lending, but will, thereafter, manage itself sustainably without further aid. It will provide a revolving fund offering loans for small-scale micro finance, short, medium and long term loans.”
The union also backed the establishment of a land commission to provide a framework for operations and land tenure. It opined that it did not seek to dictate terms to Government, but sought engagement.
Archbishop Ndanga told The Sunday Mail last week that senior CFU officials recently requested to meet him over a possible engagement with Government. He said the officials proposed to also engage the British government over its longstanding dispute with Zimbabwe, leading to the scrapping of Western-imposed sanctions on the country.
“The President recently said Zimbabwe is willing to work with even those who were against us. So, this is a positive step,” he said.
“As churches, we are willing to help in facilitating any dialogue that brings positive development to the country.”
After the meeting, Mr Taffs wrote Archbishop Ndanga a letter, reaffirming the CFU’s “eagerness” to work with President Mugabe and the new Government as well as “removing historical conflict”.
In the letter, dated September 6, 2013, the union leader said there was scope for further deliberations on the outlined proposals.
“I would like to thank you for the time you afforded myself and my director and for the frank discussion that we held in your office,” reads the letter.
“We, at the CFU, are eager to work with the recently-elected Government of Zimbabwe together with His Excellency, the President, on putting forward and formulating a comprehensive agriculture policy that will remove historical conflict, monetise lost value, placing that value back into the economy and establish high production levels.
“Bishop, we humbly submit to you a DVD document that outlines the ideas which we have developed and should you find merit in these ideas, we would welcome further discussions at the highest level.”
In a brief interview yesterday, Mr Taffs said it was critical for stakeholders to engage locally and, subsequently, at an international level. He said collaborative farming efforts would yield huge benefits to the country.
“We have come a long way to be playing cat-and-mouse and dwell on the same issues that have continued to cripple our economy,” he said.
“There is need to meet on neutral ground and work on a way forward, regardless of our skin colour.”
Political analyst and Midlands State University Media and Society Studies lecturer Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said the CFU’s proposals should be welcomed, but treated with caution.
“There is need for serious thinking because if someone fails to pay back, does it mean that we will lose our land because the title deeds will be in other people’s hands?
“But at the same time, we should be mindful that the CFU was part of the land conference that took place in the late 1990s.”
University of Zimbabwe Political Science Head of Department Dr Charity Manyeruke said adopting the proposals would be tantamount to reversing land reform.
“The land revolution that we had means that we are not going back. We do not need their title deeds because they are coming with conditionalities.
“We do not need that culture of conditionalities because it will be another form of sanctions imposed on us.”
The land question, which has been at the centre of the bilateral dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain over the last 14 years, can be traced to as far back as the colonisation of Africa.
The British invaded Zimbabwe, displacing locals from fertile lands and pushing them to poor soils. In 1896, the First Chimurenga was waged to rid the country of the settlers whose superior weaponry helped subdue the massed.
The Second Chimurenga — executed by Zanla and Zipra forces — dealt the effective blow that culminated in independence in 1980. In 1979, the British agreed to fund the land reforms by compensating farmers of European descent to facilitate the redistribution of land to the landless majority.
Then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her successor, John Major, agreed as much.
The initial phase was premised on the welling buyer, welling seller principle. However, the British, under the administration of Mr Tony Blair, later reneged on their obligation to fund land reform.
This culminated in land-hungry peasants invading white-occupied farms at the turn of the millennium, prompting Government to swiftly regularise land acquisition and redistribution.
The British subsequently internationalised the bilateral dispute, inviting European Union and United States sanctions on the country under the pretext of dealing with human rights violations and rule of law.
In the meantime, the former commercial farmers clogged the courts with applications that sought to reverse the Land Reform Programme.
However, Parliament in 2005 passed a Constitutional Amendment that barred such court recourse.
More than 1, 7 million Zimbabweans have benefited from the land reform programme and the exercise together with the Zanu-PF-led indigenisation and economic empowerment programme saw the revolutionary party thumping the Western founded and funded MDC-T in the July 31 elections.
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