Councils gobble 45 000ha agric land 

From Blessings Chidakwa in Kadoma
At least 45 000 hectares of agricultural land has been lost to illegal land allocations in the past decade, Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister July Moyo has said.

Addressing a workshop for provincial and district administrators in Kadoma last week, Minister Moyo said peri-urban expansion was destroying land meant for agricultural production.

He expressed Government’s concern at the rate at which urbanisation is affecting agricultural land.

“I have sat with my counterpart, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri (Retired), and we were given two official sides: the preliminary figures that over the past 10 years, 45 000ha of agricultural land was taken for urban development,” he said.

“The land lost is quite huge and it’s like we have created a second Harare with that lost land. All the peri-urban farming land has been gobbled up.”

Minister Moyo also revealed that peri-urban disputes were also a major cause for concern.

“Peri-urban issues had been with us for more than a decade and as a ministry, we decided to bring the affected parties together to see their challenges while mapping a way forward,” he said.

Local authorities operations, he said, were also strained due to disputes between urban and rural councils.

Minister Moyo urged councils to consider building high-rise buildings for residential purposes.

“Do not ask for land because councils are gobbling so much fertile land. Now we want structures that go up, especially in those councils affected, as well as cluster-to-cluster houses,” he said.

Minister Moyo said shortages of land had also led to streambank cultivation.

“President Mnangagwa has been preaching the gospel that Zimbabwe is open for business, but who wants to invest in a council that has poorly planned land? Local and foreign investors are grappling to invest in this country and they just want to know where to set up their structures,” he said.