adminKudzanai Gerede Business Correspondent
Government is contemplating on soliciting monetary contributions from new farmers who benefited under the land redistribution programme to help in the mobilisation of funds towards compensation of erstwhile farmers who lost their assets during the exercise, a top government official has revealed.
Addressing farmer organisations and stakeholders at a consensus based compensation mechanisms workshop in Harare last week, Minister of Finance and Economic Development Patrick Chinamasa highlighted the need for stakeholders to collectively come up with home grown solutions to compensate the farmers as enshrined in the new constitution.
He said this was part of the process of restructuring the agricultural sector and ensuring the land resettlement programme’s long disputed issues are dealt with once and for all which will lay the foundation for progressive cooperation for the embattled sector.
Government has since committed itself towards the compensation of the previous farmers but owing to tight fiscal space the minister has called for unorthodox, feasible payment mechanisms to meet the compensation costs with respect to the country’s economic realities.
During the land redistribution exercise many farmers lost their properties including some indigenous black farmers who had bought farms and there hasn’t been compensation for the lost properties.
However progress has been stalled by unavailability of sufficient funds to bankroll the valuation process of the more than 6 000 farms across the country which were resettled to find out the extent of compensation. According to the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement to date only 1 500 have been evaluated.
“I say that some of the realities which will form the mechanisms of payment will have to include the extent and capacity of the budget to pay compensation and also the new farmer contributions, those who benefitted from the land reform program, there is no reason why they cannot be called upon to pay compensation, to pay for the improvements that they inherited but this cannot happen overnight, this will consider giving them long-term payments of the cost of those improvements.
“It also means we will start talking about treasury bills, what I’m saying here is that whatever solutions we are looking into, it has to take into account those realities that the budget is tight, there is no room for it, we have to look at solutions from the people who benefited from those improvements,” said Minister Chinamasa.
The compensation issue is enshrined in Section 2,95 of the constitution where it sets out what should be compensated and with respect of which properties, thus both land and improvements depending on the category the farm lays. With respect to the category of farms previously owned by indigenous farmers compensation is for both land and improvements and with respect to the category of the rest of the farms that were compulsorily acquired during the land reform program, the compensation is for improvements only.
“As per prerequisite to any talk about compensation, there has to be evaluation of those improvements taking into consideration which category the farm falls into.
“Why I say home-grown solutions are important is that the major challenge that the economy is facing is confidence, confidence that we have mutually destroyed ourselves and its only us again who can restore it.
“Once we build confidence in ourselves that will build the basis on which we can engage with the rest of the world and that will form our re-engagement with the global economy,” added Minister Chinamasa.
Government is seized with reforming the agriculture sector through a number of initiatives it has embarked on. Currently Government is remapping the agriculture farms with the aim of establishing fixed boundaries with financial support from the European Union, United Nations Development Program and treasury following subdivisions which had been done.
The fixed boundaries will be in preparatory for branding legal instruments such as permits and tradable lease agreements with the tradable lease agreement draft at an advanced stage. These initiatives are earmarked to enhance security of tenure and agriculture productivity.
Analysts welcomed government’s moral indebtedness to erstwhile farm occupants but highlighted the prevailing economic and climatic conditions as serious impediments.
The successive droughts have rendered most of the new farmers practically unable to harbour any wherewithal towards the compensation fund at a time when government was seized with a heavy debt burden, poor revenue inflows, and sub-optimal economic worsened by liquidity constraints among other challenges.
However economic analyst Chris Chenga said the move was noble as it was a step forward in addressing security issues for resettled farmers.
“Resolving the compensation stalemate will enable the country to move forward as it will in a way address land entitlements issues that created a degree of insecurity for the new farmers. This will be welcome especially as the agriculture sector seeks a rebound as a top performer,” he said.
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