Questions about Zim government’s land restoration plans

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The Zimbabwean government has announced a legal framework to restore ownership rights to individuals and companies that lost farms over the past 20 years, in terms of the Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements.

A body representing these property owners, however, expressed dissatisfaction about what it said was the selective approach by authorities to paying compensation.

This followed the recent publishing of a statutory instrument in the Zimbabwean Government Gazette under which the government sought to restore or offer alternative land to individuals and companies whose properties were “protected under bilateral investment protection and promotion agreements when it was acquired since 2000”.


In terms of the statutory instrument, “indigenous” farmers whose land was also taken for resettlement stand a chance to be paid full compensation, regain their farms or get alternative land.

However, Ben Gilpin, director of the country’s Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), told Farmer’s Weekly that the government needed to find a way to pay compensation to all categories of farmers who lost their properties instead of being selective.

“We are yet to get a full legal opinion, but even before then it seems the statutory instrument will be challenged in terms of its legality,” he said.

“It arises out of the work of the land commission, which does not have legal status. Also, this latest proposal requires much more than a statutory instrument. They can go further to come up with an act of parliament for the proposal to be adequate.”

The government estimated that 197 out of 258 properties amounting to a combined 977 000ha were acquired over the past 20 years. Zimbabwe has such agreements with Denmark, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Malaysia, and Switzerland.

In terms of the agreements, the government was bound to pay full compensation, in foreign currency, for land and improvements to these farmers.

The government had failed to do so, which forced a group of 40 Dutch farmers to take the matter to the International Court for the Settlement of International Investment Disputes, where they won a US$25 million (about R405 million) settlement in April 2009.

Gilpin said more clarity was, however, needed on the question of “indigenous” farmers whose land ownership rights the new policy sought to restore.

“The statutory instrument seeks to address the rights of two categories of farmers, but our concern is that those who bought farms after independence in 1980 with the full consent of the government are being excluded. This approach is not in line with international best practices.”



https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/agri-news/africa/questions-about-zim-governments-land-restoration-plans/
 

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Zimbabwe Gives Land Back to White Farmers After Wrecking Economy

Two decades after President Robert Mugabe wrecked Zimbabwe’s economy by urging black subsistence farmers to violently force white commercial farmers and their workers off their land, his successor has thrown in the towel.

Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has proposed settling all outstanding claims against it by farmers by offering them land.

“The object of the regulations is to provide for the disposal of land to persons entitled to compensation,” Land Minister Perence Shiri said in regulations published in the Government Gazette Friday.

The seizures that began in 2000 were ratified by the government, which said they were needed to redress colonial imbalances. A vibrant agricultural industry that exported tobacco and roses and grew most of the food the nation needed collapsed. Periodic food shortages ensued, inflation became the world’s highest and the manufacturing industry was decimated. What was one of Africa’s richest countries became one of its poorest.

Almost 4,500 white-owned properties and others protected under government-to-government agreements were affected by the program.

The southern African nation this year budgeted about Z$380 million ($21 million) for compensation. Several farms that were protected under so-called Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements belonged to nations including the U.K., South Africa, Australia, the Netherlands and Denmark.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/zimbabwe-offers-land-to-recompense-dispossessed-white-farmers
 
If they ever get truly serious about compensation things could change drastically.
 
Very interesting news.
 
If they ever get truly serious about compensation things could change drastically.

And quickly....

Buying a farm in Zim would be high risk, but could be high reward too.
 
I don’t see anything changing anytime soon....
 
After seeing a fairly large amount of that land personally from the air most of it has been so stripped and ruined I wouldn't take it for free. Also a lot of the farmers that used to own it are out of the country, maybe some would return. This seems like "we have already ruined it, this is hard work, we don't need it anymore". I hope I am wrong, maybe this is a step in the right direction
 
Very interesting news.

the problem for that country is that those farmers and business owners went elsewhere and started over! I suspect they are successful where they landed and as such going back would be starting over again so not likely.
 
Expecting indigenous people, many who could not read or write, to take over and manage a white-owned farm and compete in 21st century agri-business was the height of Mugabe's dim witted racist arrogance. K-Man said it better than I have ever heard before..."we have ruined it, it is hard work, we don't need it anymore". To which I would add, "we are starving"...…..a ploy to suck in some new Europeans to exploit. I have a 100 Billion dollars of Zim money that I will contribute to the cause...it's last owner traded it for a pack of Camel Lights.....FWB
 
The law would need real teeth in it to protect investors, with noBS. The rational behind "we are taking your land because it should belong to blacks" would be the same as saying "we are taking all non white owned property in Europe because this should all belong to whites." It doesn't sound so good in reverse, does it?
 
I would not take my "lost" farm back if it was offered to me, nothing left except cow patties!
 
And Lon, if you spend your entire life's work and fortune to rebuild it into something good and prosperous......then they will take it again...…..FWB
 
And Lon, if you spend your entire life's work and fortune to rebuild it into something good and prosperous......then they will take it again...…..FWB

i would bet on just that!
 
Like my dear departed father used to say, "They've got delusions of granduer".
 

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