Supreme Court gives nod to farm equipment seizures

Supreme Court gives nod to farm equipment seizures

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By MacDonald Dzirutwe

ZIMBABWE'S Supreme Court has ruled that the government may acquire agriculture equipment seized from white-owned farms, clearing the way for tractors, combines and other machinery to be moved from warehouses.

Some of Zimbabwe's white farmers had stored their machinery at sites around the country while they legally challenged the government's right to take the equipment as part of its controversial land redistribution policy.

President Robert Mugabe has seized thousands of white-owned farms and redistributed the land to blacks since 2000.

In a ruling obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, the southern African nation's highest court ruled the Acquisition of Farm Equipment (or) Material Act of 2004 was not unconstitutional because it benefited the public.

"It is on this basis that I am satisfied that the compulsory acquisition in terms of the Act is for a purpose beneficial to the public generally or to a section of the public," Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, sitting with four other senior judges, said in the ruling.

Mugabe has vowed not to compensate white farmers for seized land, saying that was the responsibility of former colonial power Britain. The 83-year-old Zimbabwean leader has said the farmers would only be paid for improvements made on the farms.

Most of the white farmers have rejected the compensation as inadequate.

Less than 600 of them -- there were 4,500 white farmers in Zimbabwe in 2000 -- remain on their land.

Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF also has pushed through amendments on land seizures, effectively barring white farmers from using the courts to challenge the acquisition of their property under the land seizure programme.

Undeterred by criticism that is has led to a sharp drop in agricultural production, worsening a food crisis in the economically depressed nation, Zimbabwe's government is considering further land seizures.

Economists say the policy has accelerated an economic crisis that has pushed inflation past 7,900 percent -- the highest in the world -- and ignited shortages of foreign currency, food and fuel.

A white farmer, among a group of 11 from Zimbabwe's northwestern Mashonaland West province who appealed government eviction notices, is expected to go on trial on Thursday for failing to leave his farm after a Sept. 30 deadline.

The farmer faces a jail term of up to two years and a heavy fine if convicted. - Reuters
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