GOVERNMENT has abandoned plans to carry out a land audit as set out by the Global Political Agreement (GPA) to weed out multiple-farm owners due to lack of funds, Lands and Rural Resettlement minister Herbert Murerwa has said.
VENERANDA LANGA
He said the government would now instead carry out a “land use audit” to determine the extent of land usage.
Murerwa made the disclosures in Senate last week after Chikomo Senator Morgan Femai (MDC-T) asked him to explain what measures his ministry had put in place to guard against multiple farm ownership.
Femai alleged some individuals had grabbed as much as 5 000 hectares of land each while the majority remained cramped in small pieces of land in communal areas.
“As you know, in the GPA we had agreed on a land audit and we hoped that it would be undertaken so that it helps in determining the land available, the number of people on the land and how those people could be assisted to ensure viability,” said Murerwa.
“However, we did not have the resources to undertake this land audit because of the economic situation we found ourselves in, but in spite of this we have now agreed with the Finance minister (Tendai Biti) to make funds available so that we do what we call a ‘land use audit’, ” he said.
Murerwa told the Upper House that the intention of the land use audit was to go ward by ward to determine the size of land being used, who was on that land and how best his ministry could help those farmers.
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“There are some people who have more land than they are able to use,” he said. “We should be able to say that if one was given 200 hectares, that farmer is likely to grow and use a certain capacity. We will, therefore, leave the farmer with 40 hectares and give the rest to others. This is the way we intend to go about it.” Murerwa said there was not enough land for distribution around the country and therefore land should be shared equally among those who deserved it.
In February this year, Murerwa came under fire in the Upper House with Matopo Senator Sithembile Mlotshwa (MDC-T) asking him to explain why certain individuals in high political offices owned 20 farms.
Political analyst Effie Ncube said the sudden departure from carrying out a comprehensive land audit showed there was an attempt to try and cover up corruption that could have transpired when land was being allocated where senior government officials ended up being multiple owners of that land.
“This move to abandon the land audit and instead carry out a land use audit shows there is a clear attempt to cover up on the corrupt manner land was distributed and ended up in the hands of big fish who have multiple ownership of farms.
“What needs to be done is what was agreed on in the GPA that through a land audit, the people of Zimbabwe should know how many people now own the land, how many hectares, who owns an A1 or A2 farm so that there is transparency,” Ncube said.
Since the formation of the coalition government in 2009, the two MDCs have been calling for the land audit, arguing some senior Zanu PF officials took advantage of the chaotic land redistribution exercise to grab multiple farms at the expense of the landless majority contrary to the one-man/ one-farm principle.
