WAR veterans have resolved to tackle President Emmerson Mnangagwa and businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei head on over what they allege is an attempt to privatise land ownership and reverse the agrarian reforms that they fought for.
Mnangagwa recently announced a new land tenure programme that will see the issuance of title deeds in place of 99-year leases and offer letters previously issued to land owners.
He announced the introduction of the Land Tenure Implementation Programme through a Cabinet sitting in October 2024.
The President later appointed Tagwirei, who is on the United States sanctions list for alleged corruption, as the chairperson of the Land Tenure Implementation Committee.
Under the programme, land reform beneficiaries are expected to pay US$500 per hectare levy.
Critics argue that the State is transferring the historical responsibility to compensate former white commercial farmers onto individual farmers, setting them for failure.
On Saturday, provincial executives of theLand Tenure Implementation Programme (ZNLWVA) met in Bulawayo and resolved to challenge the ongoing land regularisation, where selected banks foist loans on farmers to pay for the land.
War veterans pushed back saying the State and its financially-connected Zanu PF elites want to steal their land, first from the politics of seizing land and from the financial capital generated by lending against it.
“The ZNLWVA held a meeting in Bulawayo with chairpersons from all 10 provinces. The gathering deliberated on urgent issues affecting veterans and the nation at large,” ZNLWVA leader Andrease Mathibela said in a statement.
“Veterans must urgently unite under the association’s collective leadership to end destructive divisions that harm ordinary comrades.
“The association will resist the selling of land, the sacred prize of the liberation struggle, which must remain the heritage of all Zimbabweans.
“Every veteran must be allocated not less than 100 hectares of agricultural land to sustain livelihoods and support food security.”
On Friday, outspoken war veteran Blessed “Bombshell” Geza also spoke out against Mnangagwa’s land regularisation as a corrupt scam.
“And now, as if the plunder is not enough, you attack the very heart of our liberation, the land reform programme,” Geza said.
“We fought for our land. Robert Mugabe redistributed it to war veterans and the landless Zimbabweans.
“Yet you work with Tagwirei to privatise it, using a dubious title deed scheme that will see farmers lose what they bled for.”
Political analyst Jealousy Mawarire also criticised the land regularisation exercise as a scam meant to prejudice farmers for billions of dollars.
“The Land Tenure Implementation Committee is an illegal entity . . . already collecting money from farmers for land valuation on top of that demanded for title deed, setting the farmers to default on the loans and lose their land to a bank owned by the Sakunda proprietor,” he told NewsDay in an interview.
A group of war veterans recently dragged Mnangagwa to court to challenge his land tenure implementation programme, which is fronted by Tagwirei.
The ex-combatants, through their War Veterans Pressure Group Trust, wanted the court to declare Mnangagwa’s land tenure system unconstitutional.
In his founding affidavit war veteran, Joseph Chinguwa said ex-combatants had been advised during meetings that they ought to pay a fee for the land they occupied before they could acquire title deeds.
“We, therefore, seek a declarator to the fact that in respect of all agricultural land vested in the State and that was acquired during the land reform programme, all title deeds were cancelled by virtue of section 72(5) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe,” Chinguwa said.
“We accept that the State can alienate land. However, such alienation cannot be done without an Act of Parliament defining the tenure system.
“We, therefore, seek a declaratory order to the effect that agricultural land cannot be alienated or privatised without the enactment of an Act of Parliament codified in section 293(3) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.”
He argued that Mnangagwa’s proposed land tenure system was unconstitutional.
“Section 291 of the Constitution makes it clear that the Constitution is the supreme law of the country and that any act of conduct inconsistent with the same is invalid to that extend.
“The doctrine of constitutional invalidity makes it clear that the exercise of power must be governed by the law and that actions or activities that are not supported by the law are ultra-vires.”
Mnangagwa launched the US$500 per hectare levy for farmers with an offer letter, permit or lease for agricultural purposes under the land tenure system.
The money will be used to settle a US$3,5 billion debt owed to former white commercial farmers.
Mnangagwa signed a US$3,5 billion compensation agreement with the former white farmers in 2020.
His government was then expected to issue long-term bonds and get help from donors to raise the money for the compensation.
The government has, however, been failing to raise the US$3 billion to compensate the former white farmers until recently when it announced an initial pay-out of US$3 million. – News Day
