Zimbabwe fast-tracks surveyor training

Zimbabwe fast-tracks surveyor training

• Gasela: Gumbo must tell the truth on food situation

• Gugulethu Moyo: doing justice to farming

• Zimbabwe beef shortages: a man-made crisis

• Top civil servant fired over fertiliser scandal

• Tsvangirai on Zim food crisis

• Zim offers compensation to white farmers

• Mugabe issues new farmers 99-year leases

• Use it or lose it, Mugabe warns farmers on land

• Renson Gasela: Zimbabwe must act now on food situation

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE has announced it will fast track examinations for student surveyors to deal with a critical shortage of the professionals that is derailing its plans to survey 15 000 farms.

A notice said the exams would be written on May 25.

“The Ministry of Lands, Land reform and Resettlement has been endowed with the task of issuing out 99 year leases to beneficiaries of the Land Reform
Programme, in which more than 15 000 farms are being title surveyed," lands secretary Ngoni Masoka said.

"Due to the current shortage of registered land surveyors in the country to expeditiously carry out title surveys of these farms, the government is desirous in making sure that more registered land surveyors participate in this noble task.

“Because of the foregoing, all land surveyors in training wishing to sit for the Land Law Examination, are hereby requested to submit their applications accompanied by training schedules to the surveyor general’s office before 20th April 2007, for consideration, in terms of the Land Survey Act (chapter 20:12).”

President Robert Mugabe issued 99-year leases to 125 farmers last year, but the government has been mum on the reason for failure to increase the number despite demands by Zanu PF supporters.

Last month, the government declared a state of disaster over food shortages blamed on drought.

Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo warned that "as a result of the prevalent drought, a state of disaster exists in all communal lands, resettlement and urban areas in Zimbabwe."

President Robert Mugabe's government has been under intense international pressure after government-backed militias marched on white commercial farms since 2000.

Opposition groups accuse the Zimbabwe government of mishandling the land redistribution exercise and failing to respect property rights.

JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com