Vusumuzi Dube
Tedious Ncube, [email protected]
In a quiet office in Harare last year, a financial transaction took place that drew little international attention but represented a milestone in one of Africa’s most complex economic dilemmas. US$3,1 million was disbursed to 378 former commercial farmers, the first coupon payment under the meticulously negotiated 2020 Global Compensation Deed (GCD). Under the GCD, the Government of Zimbabwe is compensating verified former farm owners for improvements made on farmland acquired during the 2000 land reform programme, not for the land itself. In this system, claimants receive one percent of their approved claim in cash, with the balance being settled through US dollar-denominated Treasury bonds carrying a two percent coupon and maturities of two to 10 years, which are tradeable and recognised as liquid assets on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange. So far, 740 claims have been approved by the Land Compensation Committee, and the first tranche covers a total claim value of around US$311 million, of which US$3,1 million was paid in cash and approximately US$308 million issued as bonds.
Running alongside the GCD is a separate compensation track for farmers protected under Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs), which covers both land and improvements for qualifying foreign investors. In early 2025, the Government disbursed about US$20 million under the BIPPA track to settle claims from former farm owners with BIPPAs signed before 2000, reflecting Zimbabwe’s dual-track approach to fulfilling its obligations.
Half a world away, in Washington, DC, a different transaction was unfolding. A disclosure filed with the US Department of Justice revealed that a group calling itself the Property and Farm Compensation Association (Profca) had engaged Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm with partners connected to the Trump White House, to press for billions in compensation.
These two transactions, one methodical and sovereign, the other political and high-profile illustrate competing visions for resolving Zimbabwe’s land reform legacy. One prioritises careful fiscal planning and legal frameworks; the other imports political pressure from abroad, risking the fragile progress already underway and undermining Zimbabwe’s broader financial reintegration.
To understand why the Washington lobbying campaign is so strange, it is important to recognise that Zimbabwe’s compensation mechanisms are already working and producing measurable results. Under the Global Compensation Deed signed in 2020, the Government is compensating former farm owners for verified improvements on acquired land through a carefully structured system: out of 906 claims received, 740 have been approved by the Land Compensation Committee, and the first batch of 378 former farmers received US$3,1 million in cash (representing one percent of the US$311 million total claim value), with US$308 million issued as US dollar-denominated Treasury bonds carrying a two percent coupon and maturities of 2 to 10 years bonds that are tax-free, tradable and classified as liquid assets.
In parallel, the Government is honouring obligations under Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs), which apply to foreign investors protected under treaties signed before the 2000 land reform. As part of this track, approximately US$18,2 million was paid to 85 BIPPA-protected farms, with additional resources provided for in the national budget.
These payments are embedded within the Arrears Clearance and Debt Resolution Process, Zimbabwe’s own roadmap for re-engagement with the global financial community. Facilitated by institutions such as the African Development Bank and supported by figures including Dr Akinwumi Adesina and former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, the roadmap is now entering its final stages. A key step is the imminent International Monetary Fund Staff Monitored Programme (SMP), a nine-month continuous audit that, if successful, will unlock bridge financing from international sponsors. Such support would allow Zimbabwe to clear arrears, lower borrowing costs, and secure sustainable development funding, the very foundation needed for ongoing, reliable compensation payments. In line with this plan,
Treasury has allocated US$10 million in the 2026 National Budget for GCD claimants, demonstrating continuity and fiscal discipline.
Yet as this intricate sovereign process advances, it encounters a familiar force from across the Atlantic: the machinery of the US lobbying ecosystem. What is unfolding is not simply the work of one firm, but the predictable behaviour of a system built on the revolving-door model where former policymakers, congressional staff, and executive-branch insiders leverage their past proximity to power to influence present decisions. It is a system whose incentives often push towards creating political urgency rather than resolving a diplomatic issue through existing mechanisms.
In this context, the decision by a group of former farmers to take their matter to the US political arena activates a pattern long observed in international lobbying. By placing the issue within reach of Congressional committees, political operatives, and media networks, the intention is to generate pressure, visibility, and ultimately leverage. None of this is designed to complement the carefully constructed multilateral process Zimbabwe is already implementing. Instead, the system tends to manufacture the perception of crisis so that Washington’s foreign-policy machinery becomes involved, either forcing Zimbabwe to concede to a fringe group’s preferred outcome or risking reputational damage in a geopolitical arena far removed from the mutually agreed frameworks already in place.
This dynamic has little to do with justice or financial prudence; it is simply how the lobbying economy functions. For firms that operate in this space, influence is monetised not by solving disputes but by amplifying them, ensuring that the “problem” remains alive long enough to necessitate sustained advocacy. The result is a political spiral in which third-world countries already financially strained are nudged towards seeking costly counter-lobbying services in order to defend their own positions in Washington. This is precisely the scenario Zimbabwe has sought to avoid by anchoring its obligations within structured, internationally supported arrangements such as the Global Compensation Deed, the Roadmap: Arrears Clearance and Debt Resolution Process, and its broader re-engagement strategy.
These frameworks are not hypothetical. They were negotiated with multilateral partners, peer governments, and specialised institutions including the African Development Bank. They were designed to ensure that compensation, arrears clearance, and debt restructuring occur in a way that is fiscally sustainable, diplomatically credible, and respectful of Zimbabwe’s sovereign institutions. Escalating the issue into the US political system sidesteps these arrangements entirely, substituting a rules-based diplomatic process with a theatre of power politics.
The mandate of this lobbying campaign is open to question, especially considering how it has been framed in the American political arena. Zimbabwe’s oldest agricultural representative body, the Commercial Farmers union (CFU), publicly stated it was unaware of the lobbying initiative and that its inclusion in filings was a mistake, raising significant questions about who is truly being represented. At the same time, the group that engaged the lobbyists, the Property and Farm Compensation Association (Profca) is one faction among several claimants. Even if their concerns are legitimate, the way they choose to pursue them matters: politicising the issue in a foreign power centre risks triggering political responses rather than legal or financial ones. By turning to partisan lobbying tied to the Trump administration, they risk complicating rather than facilitating resolution, because compensation under the Global Compensation Deed and BIPPA frameworks is already being implemented through institutionalised mechanisms that can accommodate all eligible claimants, including Profca’s members, as part of Zimbabwe’s Arrears Clearance and Debt Resolution Process. In any event, President Trump’s influence is temporal, while the sovereign framework Zimbabwe has committed to is enduring. Banking on external political pressure especially in ways that could jeopardise the country’s access to international finance and bridge funding only makes an already complex process more difficult and potentially self-defeat.
The path for Zimbabwe in 2026 is therefore clear. The nation’s priority is not political harassment abroad but the successful implementation of its IMF SMP and bridge financing, the only reliable route to ensure all verified claimants are compensated sustainably. Two paths now compete: one grounded in Harare’s institutions, disciplined budgeting, and internationally recognised frameworks; the other driven by external lobbying, political spectacle, and proximity to power, which risks creating unnecessary obstacles.
As Zimbabwe enters a defining year in its compensation and arrears clearance programme, the work continues in quiet offices: verifying claims, issuing bonds, and balancing ledgers. Across the Atlantic, lobbyists prepare talking points and leverage influence.
The bonds exist. The 2026 budget is allocated. The roadmap is clear. Zimbabwe’s economic future will ultimately be determined by its sovereign institutions and negotiated international frameworks not by foreign political theatre designed for spectacle or profit. The world must decide whether to support measured, credible progress or amplify a manufactured crisis with consequences that extend far beyond headlines.
*Tedious Teddy Ncube is an entrepreneur and academic.
Online Reporter
Bongani Moyo
Zimbabwe should have stood by the ethos of our liberation struggle. We were the ones to be compensated for years of torture, subjugation, humiliation and abuse. How some people came to conclude that we should compensate the same people who stole our land and made us develop it through abusing us is still something that must be interrogated in a serious way. Today we pay people for abusing us for years. Where is the logic? We aren’t going to come out of this debt that we created for ourselves. The GCD may finally be paid but the Profca will haunt generations to come. And payment of GCD will not yield anything positive because those who are expected to loosen the purse strings for funds to develop this country will not acknowledge GCD as final compensation. In essence we were cheated into believing that GCD was the final compensation required for Zimbabwe to benefit from global financing.