Moffat MungaziThe Herald
26 March 1981
INTERNATIONAL aid will help to neutralise a looming crisis of expectations among a land-hungry population, Dr Sydney Sekeramayi told Zimcord delegates yesterday.
Dr Sekeramayi, Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rural Development, told delegates of the shortage of land, equipment and finance in developing the rural areas of Zimbabwe.
He underlined the Government’s “onerous” obligations” to buy land from the commercial farming sector, in terms of the Lancaster House agreement, for redistribution to peasant farmers.
The Government had an immediate offer of more than 2 million ha which could help resettle more than within 38000 families within the next 12 months, Dr Sekeramayi said, if enough funds were made available for acquisition and development.
He said the rural population expected “a national development strategy capable of rescuing them from their present state of poverty and ushering them into an era of rapid improvement in their living standards.”
Indicating the peasants lack of access to fertile soil, the monopoly of large landowners and multinationals, a lack of proper credit, marketing and transport facilities and poor extension services, Dr Sekeramayı said: “We cannot afford the luxury of failure.”
“The starting point for the rural poor is land.” An equitable distribution of land, water and other agricultural resources was essential to eliminate rural poverty.
“The acute state of landlessness has also rеsulted in uncontrolled migration to cities, adding to the squalor of high levels of urban unemployed,” said Dr Sekeramayi.
Online Reporter