THE ZIMBABWEAN president Robert Mugabe and his closest allies control just under half of the farms taken from white farmers since the country’s so-called land-reform programme began 10 years ago, a new investigation claims.
Published yesterday by Zim Online, an independent online newspaper, the report said that rather than benefiting the poor black masses, 40 per cent of the farms taken during the land invasions are in the possession of 2,200 senior Zanu-PF party loyalists.
Since Zimbabwe’s land-reform programme began in 2000, 14 million hectares of prime agricultural land have been taken from an estimated 5,000 white farmers, supposedly for redistribution to the poor black masses disenfranchised under colonial rule.
Today there are about 400 white farmers in the country, according to Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Union, many of whom continue to experience harassment and intimidation from Zanu-PF loyalists seeking to drive them from their farms.
The programme’s critics claim Mr Mugabe (86) and his Zanu-PF allies have been using the initiative to enrich themselves and finance a wider system of patronage they employ to retain power.
This has been denied by the leader of the former liberation movement, who has said in the past that land-reform beneficiaries who received more than one farm should have their additional farms repossessed by the state.
However, when instances of multiple farm ownerships were uncovered in the past, Mr Mugabe’s government failed to act.
According to Zim Online’s land audit, Mr Mugabe, his Zanu-PF party ministers and deputy ministers in the coalition government are all multiple farm owners, as are many senior members of the security forces, judiciary and local government.
Indeed, after various government documents and audit reports were examined during the three-month investigation, Zimonline found that Mr Mugabe and his wife, Grace, are in possession of at least 14 large farms totalling 16,000 hectares.
Mr Mugabe’s deputy president Joyce Mujuru and her husband, former army general Solomon Mujuru, and their family, have accumulated more than 100,000 hectares, which amounts to at least 25 commercial farms.
Other multiple farm owners include another of Mr Mugabe’s deputies, John Nkomo (five farms); Edna Madzongwe (six farms), the senate president and a Mugabe relative and the president of the chiefs council, Fortune Charumbira (four farms).
Over the past 10 years, Mr Mugabe has often called upon the Zimbabwean army to do his dirty work during elections. As such, it is not surprising to find that nearly 90 per cent of the 200 officers above the rank of major have received farms.
The same can be said of the police force, the prisons service, the air force and central intelligence officers.
In addition, 16 supreme court and high court judges also own large farms.
Indeed, the list of land-reform farm beneficiaries resembles a who’s who of the ruling elite and the individuals involved are connected to every organ of state.
While the investigation found that up to 150,000 Zimbabweans did gain access to farm land through the land-reform programme, most of these only received small holdings of between 10 and 50 hectares each.
These were created when a number of huge commercial farms were divided up. Access to this land is said to be dependent on Zanu-PF membership.
There is no record of prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai or members of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, which are in a fraught coalition government with Zanu-PF, benefiting from land reform.
Welshman Ncube, secretary-general of a breakaway MDC faction, is listed as having received a farm under the programme.