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To give or not to give new farmers title
Charles Rukuni, The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
August 24, 2006

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=705

ZIMBABWE could be headed for another disastrous agricultural season unless people on the land are given security of tenure to enable them to use the land without fear of it being grabbed by someone else.

But even though the government says it is finalising 99-year leases — which will provide the much-needed security of tenure — observers say these leases should not just be dished out to anyone because there are too many part-time farmers who were given prime land but are not fully utilising it.

Central bank governor Gideon Gono, while calling for a moratorium on new allocations, new invasions and new disruptions effective from September 1, insisted that the land should be fully utilised and those who are not productive enough should be kicked out.

Gono said the government should insist on minimum levels of output commensurate with the size and location of one’s farm.

"Those who cannot meet those minimum quantities per season must face stiff penalties meted without fear or favour and these national targets ought to be known, signed for and made public," the central bank governor said in his monetary review policy last month.

"Such establishments, once targets have been agreed upon, must be viewed as national strategic posts whose disturbance by whoever is to be met with mandatory jail terms akin to attempts to rob a bank," he said.

Senior ZANU PF politicians have been responsible for most of the disruptions. They have been handpicking prime land and using their political clout to chase away those allocated the land.

Gono said it was better for land to be leased to capable farmers for limited periods, "even on one-year leases", until new persons had been identified.

This view was supported by business management consultant Luxon Zembe who said one of the biggest problems in Zimbabwe was that land had been allocated to too many part-time farmers, most of whom had full-time jobs in government, industry or commerce.

"I think that it is high time we asked people to choose whether they want to become farmers or retain their full-time jobs because they cannot do both," Zembe said.

"Our people should learn to appreciate that when they go into commercial farming, they are there to produce for the nation and not for their stomachs. Right now some people cannot produce because they don’t even know whether they will be on the land tomorrow or not. This uncertainty is a hindrance to strategic planning and investment."

But Zembe was quick to add that not everyone should be given land just for the sake of it.

"Let’s pick 100 or 200 highly productive farmers and concentrate on these. Let’s not spread inputs too thinly because in the end we will produce nothing.

"We must also publish the results of the land audits that have been conducted just like the government did with the Charles Utete report. This will help us identify who owns what because too much prime land was given to politicians and civil servants.

"If a farm was allocated to a politician or a civil servant we have to ask ourselves: Is he focusing on his farm or on his job? He can’t do both because most of them cannot afford farm managers. They want to do both but in the end they do a disservice to both."

While lack of security of tenure has been one of the major impediments, especially to committed and productive farmers, a recent High Court judgment could put a spanner in the works for the programme.

High Court Judge Francis Bere recently ruled that politicians, including the Minister of Lands, could not withdraw offers of land willy-nilly.

In the judgment delivered last month in which he ruled that Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa could not withdraw the offer of land to Bulawayo businessman, Langton Masunda, Justice Bere said once the government had offered land to someone and that person had accepted the offer, it was no longer an offer but a binding contract.

Masunda was embroiled in a dispute with Speaker of Parliament John Nkomo who wanted him off Volunteer Farm which incorporated Jijima Lodge.

"I am well acquainted with the provisions of the Agricultural Land Settlement Act Chapter 2-:01 — the act which regulates the allocation of land in this country," the judge said. "That act does not give the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement or the Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement unilateral powers to withdraw land offers to beneficiaries of the land reform programme."

"If it were so, it would make almost every citizen of this country who benefited from the land reform programme vulnerable. It would mean, for example, that such beneficiaries would wake up one day to find they have been evicted from their respective pieces of land in complete violation of the audi alteram partem rule. This chaotic situation could not have been the intention of the legislature when it enacted the Agricultural Land Settlement Act," he said.

The audi alteram partem rule is part of the Zimbabwean law which calls for fairness when there is a dispute. It says a decision should not be made against a person without allowing that person to give his side of the story.

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