GOVERNMENT has said the land application waiting list has increased to 250 000 since the turn of the millennium while more than 20 000 have benefitted from the land redistribution programme, a Cabinet Minister said.

To address land redistribution issues, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement is in the process of identifying underutilised land that can be redistributed.

Culprits who are set to lose land include those with multiple farms.

Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Minister Dr Anxious Masuka said this in the National Assembly during Wednesday’s Question and Answer session after queries on land distribution from legislators.

Zanu-PF Umzingwane legislator Cde Levy Mayihlome asked the Minister what had been done to ensure four traditional leaders from Umzingwane district including Chief Sigola and late former President Canaan Banana’s family receive land from the State.

Dr Masuka said while Government was looking into the cases, the public should know that all the available farms had been allocated.

He said some of the land applicants have been on the waiting list for more than 10 years.

“There is no guarantee that if someone applies for land today, they will then think that two months, a year or 10 years down the line they can get something. We have people on the waiting list that have been there in some areas since 2002 because we have 250 000 applications for land where 99 percent of the land has been allocated but has only been given to 20 000. Therefore, it is impossible to accommodate the 250 000 applications and the many that we receive every day for land. This is the reality,” he said.

Dr Masuka said according to Government’s records most of the farms are occupied even those that may seem to be idle.

“One may move around and see an unsettled farm but invariably on our records, that farm would have been offered to someone. So, on our database it will appear as if it is occupied to an extent, because there is no additional land that is available to give to people, we now have gone back to look at re-distributing that which we have given to others already. We have formulated from a policy perspective, four categories of how we are going to guide the Provincial Lands Committees and the District Lands Committees to identify such land,” said Dr Masuka.

“The first category is that of multiple farm owners and that we are identifying. The Provincial Lands Committees and District Lands Committees will then look at those that are on their waiting lists and allocate. The second category we indicated is for abandoned farms. The third category is underutilised farms and the fourth is that of derelict farms.” — @nqotshili