By Almot Maqolo.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (News of The South) – At least 650 former white commercial farmers have received payment of about RTGS50 000 (US$2 000 using the parallel make rate of 1:25) as compensation from the government, with the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) saying the money is not worth the value of investment they ploughed in.
Compensation payments have been made to white farmers in the country who lost their farms in a land reform program under the late President Robert Mugabe administration.
In the 2019 national budget, the government set aside US$53 million to pay former white farmers. An appeal was made that the money be shared over a larger number – the government agreed to that and process was put in place for an interim relief payment.
CFU president Ben Gilpin said there was sort of a self-select process so that farmers in dire need could apply for that money.
“We had around 800 applicants, some of them were removed but basically 750 were processed for interim relief. During that period of time, the US$53 million was converted into RTGS. As of now about 650 would appear to have received a payment of around RTGS50 000,” he said.
“When they started paying in June last year, we anticipated that the government would pay everybody in a space of a couple of weeks, we are into February already and we still have a 100 guys not being paid, the value of that money even conservatively has much reduced.”
The Union has 3 500 farmers who are yet to be paid any form of compensation and many of those farmers were facing difficulties to survive.
Gilpin said that the engagement with the government has been ongoing since 2015 so as to get a consensus based agreement.
“The dialogue at present is to get agreement from government with regards to the quantum on improvements and to get agreement that we can seek assistance to meet the cost for land elsewhere,” he said.
CFU engaged independent assessors that looked at government values and evaluate what they had invested in the farms.
“At the moment, we are going on to try and find a figure that is acceptable for both parties. We hope that in due course fair agreement will be reached as to the value of improvements we will go hopefully together to look for support from the international community to get a package that deals with the whole thing.”
Gilpin said those 650 farmers who have received something they still remain eligible to receive bulk of their compensation and same applies to all the rest 3 500.
In his 2020 budget presentation, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube set aside RTG$380 million to compensate mainly former white farmers who lost their land. But, using the today’s parallel market rate the figure is now US$15.2 million.
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