Land compensation deal back on track

Former commercial white farmers whose farms were acquired by the State under the land reform programme for purposes of resettling landless Zimbabweans, are “happy” with negotiations with the Government over the new compensation payment arrangement and are hoping the agreement will be concluded “soon.”

After failing to fulfil the terms of the initial agreement, also known as the Global Compensation Deed, signed in 2020, the Government offered new payment schedules late last year and intends to raise money from the minerals revenues from Kuvimba Mining House, a diversified mining company which it partly owns as well as from international investors by floating a bond.

Under the original agreement, the Government had agreed to pay US$3,5 billion between 2021 and 2026.

The compensation of the farmers is part of Zimbabwe’s re-engagement strategy with western countries and fulfilling the deal is critical in mending relations with the global community following more than two decades of international isolation.

Since 2001, just after the Government embarked on the land reform programme, the country was slapped with sanctions by western countries and the Government has blamed the restrictive measures for hurting the economy and preventing the country from accessing lines of credit from global financial institutions.

Fulfilling the deal, it is hoped, would help re-integrating the country into the global financial system, unlock foreign direct investments as well as lines of credit.

“What I can say at the moment is that we are now happy with the progress we have made with the Government,” Commercial Farmers Union president Andrew Pascoe said.

There have been concerns among the former commercial farmers over the implementation of the agreement after the Government defaulted several times. Ministries of Finance and Economic Development and Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development signed the deal on behalf of the Government.

While no official comments could be obtained from both ministries, senior officials confirmed to this publication that there were waiting for the input of the CFU.

“The new terms demonstrate that the Government

is still willing to compensate the farmers despite failing to meet our obligations as per the agreement due to circumstances beyond our control,” said one official who declined to be named because is not authorised to talk to the media.

“We are now negotiating with the other party and hopefully, the agreement would be reached very soon,” the official added.

The land, which constituted about 70 percent of the country’s arable land, was acquired from the more than 5 000 white former commercial farmers for the purposes of resettling landless indigenous Zimbabweans who were working and living on largely unproductive ecological regions characterised by poor rainfall patterns.

Under the country’s Constitution, two types of farmers were supposed to be compensated for both land and improvements on farms and these included (1) a group of “indigenous” Zimbabweans, or black farmers and (2) white farmers who had land protected by Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements (BIPPAs).

BIPPAs are agreements signed between countries, which protect the investments of foreign citizens. Zimbabwe has, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, ratified at least 12 such agreements. The countries with which Zimbabwe has such agreements include South Africa, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland, all of which had significant numbers of farmers operating in Zimbabwe before the land reform programme was instituted.

The government has also agreed to offer back to the white farmers some of the acquired land as compensation, but locally-based farmers, who account for the biggest number of the affected farmers, were not considered in this deal and are the ones expecting compensation under the US$3,5 billion deal. Once the agreement is reached, the outcome would be presented to the members for ratification.

“We made few amendments to the new terms and this is what we are negotiating with the Government,” said Pascoe. The land reform saw western countries, led by the US imposing sanctions since 2001, blaming the Government for the violation of human rights and failure to respect property rights. The Government argue that sanctions were consequences of its decision to repossess the land.-ebusinessweekly