via A1 farmers ordered to hand back offer letters | SW Radio Africa by Alex Bell November 12, 2013
Small scale farmers who received property under the ZANU PF-led land grab have been told to hand back their original offer letters, with the government apparently now trying to make sense of Zimbabwe’s chaotic land ownership system.
According to the Lands and Rural Resettlement Ministry, the old letters given to beneficiaries of the A1 land redistribution scheme will be replaced by new ones, with more detail about land ‘ownership’.
Lands and Rural Resettlement Minister Douglas Mombeshora last week reportedly said the new offer letters would contain more data compared to the previous ones.
The ZANU PF land grab campaign saw larger, profitable commercial properties being seized and parceled out to high level party officials and cronies.
A1 famers on the other hand were given smallhold properties.
But with the ZANU PF patronage system being the main decider of who received land, there has been no clear list of who was rewarded with land.
At the same time, none of the new land ‘owners’ hold the title deeds to any of the properties they received, after ZANU PF claimed that all land seized from the original owners was ‘state owned’.
A comprehensive land audit has been repeatedly called for, not only to uncover the partisan basis that the land redistribution has been based on, but also to make sense of who the beneficiaries have been.
The directive from the government to reissue the A1 offer letters is reportedly part of this attempt to make sense of the chaos, with the Lands Ministry stating that the new offer letters are expected to improve its database.
COMMENTS
This is Zanu, you hand over that letter your farm is gone!!Believe me. They have the copies of those old letters why don’t they just amend them and give new in exchange for the old ones. Watch out poor farmers!
This People’s Manifesto of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) for the 2013 harmonised elections comes against the background of the enduring and unforgettable fact that it is Zanu PF which liberated Zimbabwe after prosecuting a heroic armed struggle. It was this people’s resort to the bullet that won Zimbabweans the right to the ballot that everyone enjoys today as a legacy of our liberation struggle.
That legacy permanently connects past, present and future gen- erations of this nation with one another. It is a legacy that we all own as Zimbabweans. Accordingly, this People’s Manifesto is a solemn call from the fallen and living heroes of our liberation struggle, indeed from the wailing bones that lie in many places known and others yet to be discovered, for every Zimbabwean to patriotically cherish and jealously guard the gains of our heroic liberation struggle.
The essence of Zanu PF’s ideology is to economically empower the indigenous people of Zimbabwe by enabling them to fully own their country’s God-given natural resources and the means of production to unlock or create value from those resources. Through our deliberate socio-economic policies and achievements since our heroic independence, we have laid a firm foundation for the attainment of this strategic goal. Notably, our achievements have been blighted since 1999 by the twin evils of regime change and the illegal economic sanctions. And the last five years of the awkward GPA government have exerted the greatest toll on the people’s aspirations.
Keep on dreaming
I know man, this the ultimate rubbish. This is for those who supports the liars who destroyed and looted Zim.There are so many who still support them in this forum.
Takwez dzamai vako Angel
More like: “It’s Zanu’s resort to the bullet that won NIKUV the right to the ballot”
More data is not farming .Mombeshora. What people need is production of food to feed their families. You have failed to support those liitle land grabbers you hired to evict those who were very productive muchida mavotes. Shame.