The Zimbabwean government is set to compensate white farmers who had their properties seized in the early 2000s under the land reforms program.
Two decades ago many white farmers were evicted from their farms and the land was distributed to black families. Following the land seizures, agricultural production began to decline, and the country’s economy slowly crumbled.
On April 8, 2019, the government announced that it would begin the compensation process. Around 53 million Zimbabwean dollars has been budgeted for farmers affected by the land reform programme. Mnangagwa’s government plans to compensate only for the improvements made to the land once owned by white farmers and not the land lost.
“This is a huge step by government in acknowledging that compensation is owed by them, that the delay has caused hardship and that they are now in a hurry to deal with this not only with this interim payment but also to agree on a global figure for improvements,” the Commercial Farmers Union said.
CFU also added that “the registration process and the list of farmers should be completed by the end of April after which interim advance payments will be paid directly to the former farm owners.”
The southern African country plans to undertake a valuation exercise and expect to have this completed by May this year. The assessment will determine the compensation to be paid to each affected farmer.