The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter
THE ruling party, Zanu-PF, has said it has no regrets about the 2007 Farm Mechanisation Programme, as the scheme was an integral part of equipping farmers under the Land Redistribution Programme.
In a statement, the party’s acting Secretary for Information and Publicity and spokesperson Cde Patrick Chinamasa, said the mechanisation programme had been an integral part of the party’s agenda to economically liberate previously landless farmers that had been benefitted from the land reform programme.
“Zanu PF has no apologies to make for the Revolutionary Land Distribution embarked upon from 2000, it makes no apologies for the Government interventions in the various sectors of the economy including the Farm Mechanisation Programme to empower its new farmers in order to render the Land Reform Programme successful,” he said.
Cde Chinamasa said critics of the scheme were erstwhile opponents of the land reform doing the bidding of foreign handlers.
“Zanu-PF is proud that over the past 20 years, under very difficult circumstances, it has managed to keep the revolution on course and will not be distracted by the machinations of the opposition founded and funded by foreign interests to oppose Land Reform Programme and the Political and Economic Empowerment of the population.
“The opposition campaigned repeatedly during the Land Redistribution Programme against the empowerment of the population, exhorting the population not to participate in the Land Redistribution Programme. The opposition and its supporters instead preferred to be empowered through receipt of allowances and the pittance given to them by foreign forces through the intelligence services of countries which imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe,” he said.
