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Government to undertake yet another land audit, the eighth
Njabulo Ncube, The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
December 20, 2006

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=2165

THE GOVERNMENT says it will undertake yet another land audit — the eighth since 2000 — to assess the impact of its chaotic, fast-track land redistribution exercise.

The latest audit was announced by Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, who chaired ZANU PF’s land committee at the ruling party’s annual conference last week.

"The government will be undertaking an audit starting next month to check on what is happening on the farms," Chombo told the conference.

Information obtained by The Financial Gazette indicates that since government began parceling out land to its supporters in 2000, 6 527 farms with a total area of 12 million hectares had been acquired for resettlement. A total of 140 866 new farmers were resettled under the A1 resettlement model, while 14 500 more were allocated land under the A2 scheme.

The land reform exercise sparked controversy after it emerged that most of the fertile land ended up in the hands of a few top ZANU PF officials, while most land-hungry peasants were dumped on poorer farms with little financial support to undertake any real farming, leading to a sharp drop in agricultural output.

International aid agencies that have consistently criticised the government for disregarding affordability and the country’s implementing capacity when it undertook the agrarian reforms, recently advised it to urgently avail funds for the importation of up to 700 000 tonnes of grain to avert starvation.

Chombo said the land reform exercise would benefit immensely from the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act, which came into effect yesterday ( December 20, 2006). The law repeals the Rural Land Occupiers (Protection from Eviction) Act.

"Under the new law, white farmers with eviction letters should go," said Chombo. No person may hold or occupy gazetted land without authority from the government or its designated agent. Violation of this law is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for a period of up to two years, or both.

The results of most previous land audits have never been made public. These include the Flora Buka Land Audit, which revealed multiple farm ownership by ZANU PF chefs.

Chombo said this latest land audit, which would concentrate on A1 farms, would help to resolve a pile of outstanding disputes over land ownership.

ZANU PF officials have been known to hop from one farm to the other, usually in time to take advantage of crops ready to be harvested.

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