Govt compensating farmers: Shiri
GOVERNMENT is in the process of compensating farmers who lost their investments through the land redistribution programme, but will not pay for land since it belongs to the State, Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri (Retired) has said.
Briefing the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) administrator and UN Development Group Vice Chairman Mr Achim Steiner, who paid a courtesy call on him at his Ngungunyana Offices, Minister Shiri said the World Bank was looking at assisting through the facilitation of finance to compensate the affected farmers.
In an interview after the meeting with Mr Steiner and his UN team, Deputy Agriculture Minister Davis Marapira said although he did not have figures at hand, Government had already paid some farmers while others were still waiting for payment.
“As Government, we are saying for any development which has been done on land, those farmers should be compensated. What we are not going to pay compensation for is the land itself because it belongs to the State,” he said.
“The minister also discussed the meeting, which he had with the World Bank, where the bank is looking into assisting in the facilitation of finance for compensation of our farmers.”
Deputy Minister Marapira said the meeting was a follow up on the areas in which UNDP had assisted Government in the agriculture sector, for example in terms of facilitation of transport system for surveyor-generals who were demarcating agriculture land.
He said UNDP had also provided eight vehicles, which were being used for issues to do with land disputes and double allocations in provinces.
The UNDP, he said, was also assisting in facilitating land evaluations.
“We had other things, which we discussed that have nothing to do with land, but agriculture production, where UNDP said it could assist in the development of small irrigation schemes, which are going to help our rural farmers to get better yields through facilitation of irrigation systems,” he said.
“We also discussed issues to do with livestock development assistance in fencing game parks so that we do not have buffaloes encroaching into our communal area and commercial farms and passing on foot and mouth to our animals.”
Mr Steiner said he had paid a courtesy call on Minister Shiri because of the centrality of the agriculture sector to Zimbabwe’s economy and economic recovery.
“We reviewed our collaboration both on the issues that need to be addressed in terms of land reform and compensation, which are an important signal to those who wish to invest in the sector and more significantly the future programmes,” he said.
“We are conducting programmes to support the Government in addressing the vulnerability and risks of climate change and how to strengthen resilience of the agricultural sector as well as make smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe less exposed to the risks of climate change.”
He said it was the reason why UNDP had been working with the Government for a number of years through investing in the agriculture sector.
Mr Steiner said Minister Shiri indicated to him that there had been a lot of work being done by the Land Commission in the last few months with the support of UNDP, especially in establishing boundaries.
“My understanding is that the ministry wants to complete the work as soon as possible,” he said.