PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has lashed out at beneficiaries of the government’s land reform programme who are reportedly leasing their lands back to white former commercial farmers.
At least 120 evicted white ex-farmers have reportedly returned to their former lands through leasehold deals under which the parties share profits.
Addressing a Zanu PF central committee meeting, Mugabe slammed what he described as the "slavish mentality" of some land reform beneficiaries.
"Where some people have accessed the means of production, a certain paralysis afflicts them and leads them into underhand deals with the same white man who, yesterday, refused to share a resource that should be enjoyed by all the country’s citizens.
“When will this slavish regard; slavish mentality of hero worshipping the white man, our coloniser just yesterday, end, in order to allow our people to exercise and realise their full potential? That slavish mentality should end," he said.
Mugabe said he was disturbed to learn that the new farmers were leasing their lands for a share of the farm profits at the end of the season.
“It is grossly disturbing to learn of the extent to which some of our people have gone towards literally giving back the land to white farmers, all for a pittance of the farm profits at the end of the season," he said.
"Why not work towards reaping the entire profits for one’s family?”
The Zanu PF leader warned that the private land deals threatened to reverse his party’s empowerment programmes.
"Regrettably, this feeling of inadequacy and du-plicity in some of our people threatens even the very programmes that Zanu-PF put together for their economic empowerment. Some abuses of the resettlement exercise stand as testimony to this short-sightedness," he said.
The returning white former farmers have also attracted bitter criticism from colleagues who said the private lease “disgraceful”.
"These farmers handed Mugabe victory," said former Zimbabwe Tobacco Association president, Andy Ferreira.
Trevor Gifford, a past president of the CFU, who was forced off his farm in eastern Zimbabwe earlier this year added: "I am relieved this is coming out. Some of these white farmers are behaving disgracefully."