The effects of the chaotic land reform programme are still being felt by the majority of citizens some 24 years after former president Robert Mugabe sanctioned the invasion of commercial farms owned by white Zimbabweans.
Mugabe, whose political career was hanging by a thread due to economic collapse and poor governance, opportunistically latched onto the popular clamouring for the redistribution of land that was largely held by a minority white population, to the majority landless blacks.
He oversaw the parcelling out of productive commercial farms to mainly Zanu PF supporters and government officials. Some bigwigs helped themselves to multiple farms that they have run to the ground.
Zimbabwe, which was once considered a bread basket for Africa, was plunged into a food-deficit country.
This year over nine million people need food aid, partly because of the devastating effects of the El Nino weather phenomenon that ushered one of the worst droughts in history, but with a better organised agriculture industry the country would have been better positioned to absorb the shocks.
Zimbabwe’s agro-based economy was also badly affected by the chaos that characterised the land reform programme.
Since coming into power through a coup that toppled Mugabe in 2017, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has been working to correct some of the mistakes of that era and that includes compensating the dispossessed farmers.
A missing link has been lack of security of tenure for those that were given land, which made it difficult for them to obtain loans from financial institutions to finance productivity.
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On Friday, Mnangagwa launched a new policy that will allow beneficiaries of the land reform programme to sell, and be able to borrow from banks using the land as collateral.
A handful of farmers, including Mnangagwa himself, received title deeds to the farms they are occupying.
Mnangagwa announced a technical committee that will spearhead the rollout of title deeds to other resettled farmers.
While we welcome the initiative, we want to urge the authorities to be fair and transparent in the process to avoid disadvantaging poor and vulnerable land holders.
Over the years, there have been thousands of poor families that have been thrown out of their land by powerful people and companies because they did not have title deeds.
There will be vultures waiting to take advantage of corruption and political interference that is endemic in government offices to elbow out some beneficiaries of the land reform programme and we implore the authorities to be on the lookout.
The issuing of title deeds must not benefit the elite only, but every deserving Zimbabwean should be catered for.
