Editorial Comment: Move swiftly to address land anomaly

17 May, 2015 - 00:05 0 Views

The Sunday News

Zimbabwe today is a doyen of brilliant and pro-Pan African policies compared to its sister nations on the continent because of its pro-poor economic policies championed by the Government under the revolutionary leadership of President Mugabe. A glance at the pro-poor policies include the land reform programme and the indigenisation drive. Through executing these progressive policies President Mugabe stands out as a leader who has defeated and reversed the evils of colonialism and imperialism. He has given hope to the down-trodden and patriots of this continent.

However, despite such marvellous work we still have people among us, who have become stumbling blocks to these revolutionary programmes especially in the sphere of the land reform programme. There are some people who among the more than 300 000 that benefited under the land reform programme are neglecting those farms in the process earning nicknames such as cellphone farmers. Such behaviour is scandalous and a betrayal to the sons and daughters of this great nation who lost their lives fighting for the freedom of this country, whose main objective was to get back our land that was painfully stolen from our ancestors.

It is against this background that we welcome reports that the Government will soon move in and take land from those with multiple farms, while those with huge farms exceeding 1 000 hectares will have them sub-divided and parcelled out to landless families. Responding to questions raised by members of the public during a Constitution outreach programme in Mutare on Friday, Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs said the on-going land audit would expose those with multiple farms.

“We know that some of us senior Government officials got more than one farm, while some parcelled farms to family members, relatives and girlfriends at the expense of other families,” said Cde Mnangagwa. “We are going to look at that and give those pieces of land to other people people.”

We therefore urge the Government to move with speed and correct this behaviour by some of our people who are giving the land reform programme a bad name and also undoing the good work and vision of President Mugabe. At this moment there is no guessing that thousands of Zimbabweans are rubbing their hands with glee as they anticipate the correction of this undesirable, shameful and treacherous act by the pseudo farmers.

President Mugabe himself has always warned people including Government ministers that they should stop playing games with the land reform programme. We remember in July last year when he said he was aware that some people including Government ministers were sub-letting farms acquired under the land reform programme while some chiefs were illegally re-settling people. In his warning President Mugabe made it clear that those who were in the habit of either sub-letting land, renting it out, holding onto the farms for prestige and using them for weekend retreats would lose them.

We believe this is the time now to send a clear message to those who are fooling around with the land reform programme once and for all. Even High Court judge Justice Nicholas Mathonsi once warned that the Government policy on the land reform programme was not recreational, neither was it designed to accord beneficiaries some pastime.

It is therefore unfair and tantamount to sabotaging the country’s economy if some people hold onto the large tracts of land without being productive.

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