Zimbabwe to nationalise all productive land

Zimbabwe to nationalise all productive land

ZIMBABWE will claim ownership of all land under new laws

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By Agencies

ZIMBABWE'S government plans to nationalise farmland by cancelling the titles to all productive land and replacing them with 99-year leases, a senior cabinet minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

"In the end all land shall be state land and there will be no such thing called private land," Lands Minister John Nkomo told the state-owned Herald.

"We want a situation whereby this very important resource becomes a national asset," he said.

"The state should not waste time and money on acquisitions. Ultimately, all land shall be resettled as state land," Nkomo said.

Four years ago Zimbabwe embarked on a controversial land reform program that saw the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms that were handed over to landless blacks.

Veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war were dispatched to carry out the takeovers of the farms that at times turned violent.

The land reform scheme drove close to 4 000 white large scale commercial farmers from their land which was parcelled and given to landless blacks.

Scores of former Zimbabwean farmers have re-located to other African countries such as Mozambique, Zambia, Nigeria and Uganda where they are leasing farmlands.

A small group of about 4 500 whites farmers owned a third of the country's land including 70 percent of prime farmland before the government launched the program in February 2000.

Fewer than 500 white farmers now remain in Zimbabwe and own just three percent of the country's land, according to a government audit of the land reform programme.

The land reform programme, along with a combination of factors, including poor planning, lack of resources, HIV/AIDS and drought have led to a huge slump in Zimbabwe's agricultural production in recent years.

The government, however, says that this year, its agricultural production has surpassed expectations and that the country will require no external aid to feed its people.
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