Opposition hails ED on land audit
ONE of Zimbabwe’s opposition parties has welcomed efforts by President Mnangagwa to correct land-ills in a bid to boost the country’s economic recovery through the use it or lose it policy.
In a statement, Zimbabwe Economic Freedom Fighters (ZEFF) president Mr Innocent Ndibali said the move by President Mnangagwa under the new dispensation was a great initiative.
“We as ZEFF in Zimbabwe would like to commend the President of the Second Republic of Zimbabwe, His Excellency Emmerson Mnangagwa for taking a positive direction in land audit to ensure the resource was distributed fairly among all citizens.
“This is a very correct direction which the country must take if the past imbalances are to be corrected and it seems the President is heeding our call to give land to everyone equally. As such we are a party that believes that where good things are done we then congratulate and encourage progress of implementation of such initiatives,” said Mr Ndibali.
He added that land should be distributed equally among the people in the country and his party was in full support of President Mnangagwa.
“We believe those with vast tracts of land while fellow Zimbabweans do not own land are thieves as well. We therefore call for a speedy resolution by President Mnangagwa’s Government in correcting this ill-behaviour wrought under the previous Government of former President Robert Mugabe.
“We are supporting that every Zimbabwean must be entitled to land and it must be one farm one family and we cannot have a situation where the former President is said to own 21 farms while some people live in squatter camps.
“We therefore, call upon Zimbabweans to support the efforts by ED’s Government in implementing this programme. We are availing ourselves as an organisation to assist in any way to see that this project where the President is pioneering the redistribution of land fairly and equally is a success,” said Mr Ndibali.
He added: “We will stand with the President in seeing through this programme and we are also urging fellow patriotic opposition parties to heed the President’s call and work together for a better Zimbabwe where land is shared equally among all Zimbabweans despite race, tribe and beliefs and or political alignment.”
President Mnangagwa is on record saying his Government is ready to seize and redistribute large tracts of idle farmland mostly owned by politicians. He has been loud in calling for the oneman-one-farm policy.
“The land reform programme is done and dusted and as Government, we have embarked on a land audit. The audit has unearthed that most of the bigwigs have more than one farm. The preliminary reports have shown us that most senior officials within the party (Zanu-PF) have more than one farm. As Government, we are going to address the anomaly and we are going to repossess those farms and redistribute them,” said President Mnangagwa while addressing traditional leaders in Kadoma on Monday.
President Mnangagwa said Government was going ahead with plans to repossess the farms for redistribution to other Zimbabweans who did not benefit from the country’s land reform process in the past 18 years and also they would move to downsize some of the farms considered too big.