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Hebert Zharare and Noah Pito Harare Bureau
CABINET has mandated the Lands and Rural Resettlement Ministry to take over the collection of land rentals and unit tax from all A1 and A2 farmers following reports that some rural district councils (RDCs) were abusing the money. Until the recent announcement, the RDCs have been collecting the levies. The new Cabinet directive would see the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement, handing over the land levies to Treasury to ensure accountability.
Lands and Rural Resettlement Minister, Douglas Mombeshora, yesterday confirmed the latest development, adding that land levies would only be collected from beneficiaries of State land, while those with title deeds to their land would be spared.
The government recently introduced land levies for land holders that saw A1 farmers paying $15 per year for the land they have. Under the scheme, $10 is land rental while $5 is unit tax that goes to RDCs.
The A2 farmers pay land rentals of $3 per hectare per annum and $2 unit tax per hectare, with the farmers forking out a total of $5 per hectare per year. Private companies using State land will now pay $10 land rental per hectare per year and $2 unit tax.
To date, the government has resettled 145,775 families on 5.979 million ha under A1 and 18,289 people on 2.978 million under A2 model. This means the government can collect about $15 million from A2 farmers alone and $2 million from A1 annually.
Said Minister Mombeshora: “It’s true that the Ministry (of Lands and Rural Resettlement) has taken over the collection of levies from RDCs. Cabinet approved that all land rentals and unit tax should be collected by the Ministry after which it will be handed over to Treasury that will later distribute unit tax to RDCs,” he said.
Before the Cabinet directive, some RDCs were collecting the money and there were challenges with accountability.
However, the 26-member Hurungwe RDC in Mashonaland West Province frowned at the new arrangement. They feel the new arrangement will compromise service delivery since their council now realises less revenue than under the old system.
After the reading of a government circular advising of the new system during a full council meeting held at Magunje Growth Point last week, some councillors condemned the new system for contradicting Section 6:2 of the Finance Act of 2009, which stipulates levies RDCs collect from communal, A1 and A2 farmers.
“It’s better to continue using the old system with council remitting the government’s portion since we already have the special resources for revenue collection; trained personnel, data bases, vehicles for the exercise and everything else,” suggested one councillor.
According to some councillors, the move was also likely to cause problems in the enforcement of council by-laws particularly in environmental management and conservation. The councillors believe that the farmers will have less respect for an authority that does not levy them right on the ground, hence making it difficult for council to implement some of its by-laws.
The councillors also claim that under the old system their personnel would simultaneously attend to most of the environmental and conservation issues during their revenue collection visits, which would now be expensive to carry out under the new system.
Before the new set up the third schedule of the RDCs Act (Chapter 29:13) as read with the Finance Act, Section 6:2 of 2009, empowered Hurungwe RDC – whose land falls under three regional classes (2, 2a and 2b) — to levy communal farmers.
Online Reporter