-
One comical thing is that they grabbed this land, farms, shops, buildings, hotels all sorts of stuff. Then they've swopped it for Oil with Lybia. Lybia has then sold it for foreign exchange to ...Leave a comment:
-
Snigger
Zimbabwe has confirmed that it is offering land to white farmers who had their property seized under President Robert Mugabe's land reform programme.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told the BBC any Zimbabwean can apply for land and that farms would be allocated on long leases.
But he said that farmers would not necessarily get back land they lost.
Critics say the reforms have devastated Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy and led to massive food shortages.
By confiscating the white-owned commercial farms, the government transformed a country that was once the breadbasket of Southern Africa into a net food importer.
And despite good rains there is every prospect of another deficit over the coming season, our correspondent says.
Mr Mugabe has admitted that there was corruption in the distribution of the farms seized from the whites.
Poor blacks farmers, in whose name the land reform was carried out, were often left to fend for themselves.
Without capital, implements or seed, many failed to use the land productively and agricultural output has collapsed.
Tobacco used to be Zimbabwe's major export earner but production has fallen from 237m kg in 2000 to 73m kg last year.
President Mugabe this month celebrated 26 years in power
The white farmers are being invited to apply for land on the same basis as other Zimbabweans. Successful applicants will be given 99-year leases.
The unclear legal status of the farms is another factor in the declining agricultural output, which the government hopes will soon be solved.
Zimbabwe is now poorer than it was at independence in 1980, after it had survived 16 years of sanctions and eight years of civil war.
Leave a comment: