Government has unveiled plans to set up a Land Compensation Fund to raise cash to compensate for land expropriated from white commercial farmers under the country’s controversial land reform programme.

By Lovemore Chazingwa
THE Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement is set to receive about US$8 million from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Union (EU) towards farm surveys, as government moves to compensate dispossessed former white farmers.
Lands Minister, Douglas Mombeshora, said this while addressing delegates gathered for the initial workshop on Consensus Based Compensation Mechanisms held in the capital recently.
“I wish to acknowledge the assistance my ministry is receiving from UNDP and EU worth US$7,8 million that has significantly boosted capacity in the various areas of our competence and the critical areas of valuation and compensation mechanisms. This workshop has been made possible by that project support,” he said.
Local funding had also come from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), he said.
“On the other hand, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and RBZ have recently released sufficient financial resources to my ministry to enable the speedy completion of the farm valuations and title surveys for the new farms.
“Similarly, Treasury has given approval for the operationalisation of my ministry’s Compensation Fund into which all the revenue generated by my ministry is channelled.”
He told stakeholders that his ministry had been assured of additional funds for completion of the project.
Zimbabwe recently unveiled plans to set up a Land Compensation Fund to raise cash to compensate for land expropriated from white farmers under the country’s controversial land reform programme.
The white farmers continue to hold onto title deeds to the expropriated land, although the resource has been declared State land after government amended the country’s laws following several court cases it had lost against the white farmers.
The fund is part of government’s initiative to re-engage the international community, which slapped the country with sanctions following the land reform programme in 2000.
Mombeshora said the current initiative would allow government to resolve the land issue and issue security of tenure documents to beneficiaries of the land reform programme.
They would also be able to fund the work of a soon-to-be established Land Commission, he said.
He said these measures were indicative of government’s unwavering resolve to bring to finality the issue of compensation to former white farm owners.
“To this end, my ministry has been undertaking farm valuations across the country to determine the amount of compensation payable to every previous owner. To date, my ministry has valued 1 519 out of 6 240 (farms); 240 (farms) have been fully paid for and 17 partially compensated,” he said.
He said progress had been affected by the nature of the task, huge costs involved and the migration of some former farm owners to other countries.
“The human resource base dealt the ministry a heavy body blow as there were only four qualified land surveyors in the ministry such that it had to hire extra expertise at a very high cost. The ministry has since been given the green light to recruit more qualified surveyors.”
The indaba was graced by government ministers, a delegation from the EU, representatives of the UNDP, diplomatic corps, deputy ministers and permanent secretaries, farmer organisations and local and international dignitaries in the agrarian sector.
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