Govt to seize land from third company
By Alex Bell
24 April 2013
The government has stated its intention to seize land belonging to the
agro-industrial group CFI Holdings, which will be the third company in
recent months to be targeted by the state in this way.
According to a Government Gazette published last Friday, over 1,000 hectares
of land that belongs to the CFI Holdings owned Crest Breeders International
chicken group will be acquired for “urban development.” The notice, which
states that the land will be acquired by the President, also says that the
land was ‘ready for inspection’ by the Ministry of Lands.
CFI Holdings has confirmed the development and said in a statement that they
were concerned about what this means for their operations.
“As CFI we are concerned at this development as it affects our operations on
the piece of land in question. The farm targeted for compulsory acquisition
houses our (egg) layers facilities and nearly 600 people are employed
there,” the company said in a statement.
CFI said if it is assumed that an average family has five people, then close
to 3,000 people whose livelihoods were derived from the farm would be
affected.
“We are proceeding to make representations through our lawyers to the
relevant ministry why the land should not be compulsorily acquired. It is
our hope that this matter will be amicably resolved,” the company said.
The government earlier this year successfully took almost 1,600 hectares of
land from the Mazoe Citrus Estate, owned by the agro-producer Interfresh.
The group said the land that was taken by the government, and allocated to
Grace Mugabe, constituted 46% of Mazoe Citrus’s total arable land, which
translated to 30% of their budgeted revenue.
More recently, the platinum mining group Zimplats is fighting to retain some
28,000 hectares of its land gazetted last month by the government “for the
benefit of the public”. Zimplats said this would constitute almost 50% of
their mining area, and have since filed an objection. The company said
Wednesday that it has still not received a response to the objection from
the government.
Although the companies are exploring ways of fighting the land seizures, the
law is not on their side, with the new constitution enshrining the state’s
right to seize land. Chapter 72 in the new constitution states that all
agricultural land, including forestry land, conservation land and
horticultural land, among others, may be “acquired” by the State for “public
purpose.” Section 2 states: “the land, right or interest may be acquired by
the State by notice published in the Gazette identifying the land, right or
interest, whereupon the land, right or interest vests in the State with full
title with effect from the date of publication of the notice.”
These takeovers will also be done without compensation, according to the new
charter, and compensation issues cannot be challenged in the courts.
Former Chegutu farmer Ben Freeth, who has vocally criticised this section of
the constitution, said Wednesday that the targeting of the three companies
is a continuation of the same land thefts seen in Zimbabwe over the past 13
years.
“The constitution has endorsed what has been happening for the last 13
years. And we will continue to see more and more of this as we head to
elections,” Freeth told SW Radio Africa.
He continued: “There will be more seizures, more gazetting of land, more
takeovers of companies, more people left unemployed and more companies left
without management and going to rack and ruin.”
Freeth went on to warn that this situation has been ‘normalised’ to the
detriment of Zimbabwe, because it is causing even more damage to the country’s
investment profile.
“Investment is not coming to Zimbabwe. Investors look at what is going on
and they see investments being taken in this way, and they look elsewhere.
And without investment, there is no future in the country,” Freeth said.