Source: Zanu PF MPs slam govt over land barons – DailyNews Live
Mugove Tafirenyika 30 September 2017 1
HARARE – Government is sponsoring cartels that are in the business of
grabbing farms whose owners would have died and selling them for a fee,
Parliament heard this week.
Zanu PF legislators complained in the National Assembly during Wednesday’s
question without notice session that the cartels have all but taken over
Douglas Mombeshora’s ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement.
The ruling party lawmakers led by Mutoko East MP Nelson Mawere asked
Mombeshora’s deputy Berita Chikwama what government is doing to stop abuse
of children whose parents were given farms under the land reform programme
but have since died.
“Your ministry is now causing confusion in that regard. What is
government’s policy and how are you going to look into that because
orphans are being abused,” Mawere said.
“Yesterday, an orphan was removed from a barn of a house and was put in an
area with thorns where the land has not been prepared. Can I be allowed
to bring a paper or to bring the said family to you so that you can assist
them?” she asked.
In her response Chikwama said government’s policy does not allow a
deceased person’s land to be taken away.
“Once that happens you should make a report. Furthermore, there is an
inheritance process when one is deceased,” Chikwama said adding that the
law that is in accordance with the deceased estates should take its
course.
“We know that there are others who quickly take over land from widows as
soon as their husbands are deceased. Ever since we came into that
ministry, women who have had their land taken were having their land
restituted”.
She, however, called on women to occupy the land left by their husbands
immediately after their deaths because “it will cost government a lot of
money when they have to send its officers to go and bar the new invaders
on that land”.
Chikwama’s response, however, did not seem to satisfy Buhera North MP
Joseph Chinotimba
who felt the minister had “left some gaps because when people want to
report after losing their land it is a challenge” because the ministry is
allegedly the source of the problems.
“Where are they supposed to report? Are they supposed to go to the person
who issued them the land because their system as a ministry is not ideal
at all?” Chinotimba asked.
“Where are they supposed to report? If people go to the minister, will
the minister not request one to make an appointment before they go to see
him? So, who exactly are they supposed to see and where are they supposed
to go and report because we know that these people can be tricked.
“They cannot also go to the permanent secretary. So, those who are losing
their land, to whom exactly are they supposed to report?” he asked.
His Chegutu West counterpart Dexter Nduna also weighed in suggesting that
there is nepotism in the manner lands officers were appointed in the
ministry.
“I do not think it is right to remove the lands officer who is male and
then put his wife. This problem cannot be solved in this manner,” Nduna
said.
Citing the case of Chegutu and Kadoma, Nduna said: “You (Chikwama) removed
a lands officer in Chegutu and put him in Kadoma and then you replaced him
with his wife in Kadoma”.
“I am saying that we cannot solve these challenges if the situation is
like that.
“You should put other officers who are not related in different areas.
Why not put people who are not related to ensure that the challenge is
solved?”
The new farmers who were allocated land forcibly taken away from white
commercial farmers on 99-year leases since 2000 have no legal claim to the
land as government is reluctant to issue them with title deeds.
The lands officers are therefore taking advantage of that to work with
influential businessmen, politicians and government officials in
falsifying land registration documents resulting in several cases of
double and even multiple allocations.
In 2014 for example the ministry through the National Land Inspectorate
investigated seven officials from various provinces for allegedly
demanding payment from people seeking to be allocated land.
Lands officers implicated in the corruption comprised two from the
Midlands’ Mvuma District, two from Makonde and Hurungwe districts in
Mashonaland West, two from Umguza District in Matabeleland and one at the
ministry’s head office in Harare.
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