adminGeorge Maponga in Masvingo
The Zanu-PF leadership in Masvingo has unanimously recommended the acquisition of 29,000 hectares of sugar cane plantations under the control of sugar producer Tongaat Hulett in the Lowveld for resettling thousands of landless people.
Masvingo has more than 10,000 people on the waiting list to be resettled amid revelations by senior officials that the province had run out of land.
However, the Zanu-PF leadership in the province at the weekend said Government was supposed to acquire Tongaat Hulett cane plantations and resettle land hungry people.
Over 1,000 delegates attending the Zanu-PF inter-district conference ahead of the party’s National People’s Congress in Harare this week, last Saturday overwhelmingly endorsed plans to push for the acquisition of the sugar cane estates so that Tongaat Hulett specialises in cane milling. Newly-elected Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial chairman Cde Pupurai Togarepi, said the acquisition of the cane plantations was top among the priorities of his executive.
“After our National People’s Congress, we will work round the clock to make sure that Government acquires all the 29,000 hectares of cane fields that are currently under Tongaat Hulett in the Lowveld. Our landless people should be allocated sugar cane plots in the plantations so that Tongaat Hulett concentrates on milling,’’ he said.
“We want the company’s monopoly in sugar cane production to be broken with our landless people becoming out-growers who will produce the sugar cane. We want more and more of our people to be empowered. It’s our hope that Government will accept our recommendation,’’ added Cde Togarepi.
Former Masvingo Governor Cde Titus Maluleke, said the acquisition of the cane plantations would ease land hunger in Masvingo province and result in large- scale empowerment of indigenous Zimbabweans.
Cde Maluleke said there was need to increase the number of indigenous sugar cane farmers in the lucrative sugar cane farming sector in the Lowveld by giving more landless people plots.
“We currently have slightly less than 1,000 indigenous A2 sugar cane farmers in the Lowveld and we feel the number should go further up. President Mugabe and the Zanu-PF government have a well-known track record of empowering ordinary Zimbabweans and the people of Masvingo are optimistic that the highest office in the land will give the green light to the takeover of the cane fields,’’ said Cde Maluleke.
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derick.khumalo