Posted on 12/05/2002 3:40:16 AM PST by Clive
Although the government claims it has stopped acquiring farms, the listing and gazetting of commercial farms continues, a state of affairs interpreted by critics to mean continued confusion in the farming sector.
Only last week on Friday, 36 farms were listed in an Extraordinary Government Gazette under General Notices 610 A of 2002 and 610 B of 2002. Circle Cement's farm in the Mazowe area was one of the targeted 36 real estate properties.
Friday's listing followed a series of two other notices released earlier in November for the acquisition of a total of 75 farms dotted around the country. 55 farms were listed on 8 November under General Notices 574 of 2002 and 575 of 2002 while another 20 farms were, under General Notice 583 A of 2002, listed on 15 November 2002.
At the end of May this year, Joseph Made, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement said the government was winding up the land reform programme. He used the phrase, "polishing up the land reforms".
At that time, government officials reported they had availed 10 million hectares of land to "new farmers" under the Model A1 and Model A2 schemes.
Numerous applicants, some of whose names had appeared in the State-controlled Press as successful beneficiaries, however complained that the promises made to them had not materialised.
Government went on to make an undertaking that all successful applicants under the model A2 scheme would receive their letters of offer before 31 August this year.
After August, the official message relayed to the world by President Mugabe and other members of his government was that the land reform programme was complete and all that was left was for the newly settled black farmers to produce bumper harvests and prove they could outclass the displaced white farmers.
"The land programme was the platform we operated from towards the presidential elections, and we can never let the people down. That platform was very clear. Also clear were the food security, employment-creation and economic growth objectives," said Made on 31 May this year.
The three sub- themes of the Zanu PF campaign message were presented as by-products of the highly publicised Third Chimurenga.
The completion of the farm seizures and subsequent redistribution process did not, however, end in August as claimed by the government.
The government's principal economic recovery plan through the land reform programme has often been blasted by farmers, economists, politicians and land planners, for its chaotic nature.
A disappointed "successful applicant" who declined to be named yesterday accused government of misleading the nation and the world that the agrarian programme was proceeding well when the exercise was in fact all about the further enrichment of senior Zanu PF officials, at the expense of the farming industry and food security for the nation.
He said: "The continued listing long after the deadlines set by the government itself only goes to show that this Chimurenga series is a scam executed haphazardly. They may list farms for the next 20 years, if they are still in power then, but we all now know that the Third Chimurenga is a self-enrichment project."
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