WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2011-07-25 Time: 18:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Eric Bloch
MORE than two decades after the enactment of the Land Acquisition Act, and commencement of its implementation 10 years later, Zimbabwe’s land reform programme continues to be a major disaster.
Whilst it cannot be credibly argued that land reform was not very necessary and was grievously long overdue, nevertheless the way that Zimbabwe sought to achieve that critically needed reform was, and continues to be catastrophic, and a principal trigger of the economic morass that has afflicted Zimbabwe and its people.
It was incomprehensible and untenably unjust that for more than half a century, indigenous Zimbabweans were barred by the evil Land Apportionment Act from possessing land. They were unable to engage in the very foundation of the economy, being agriculture, save for farming on communal lands and as labour on non-indigenously owned farms. The policies that prevailed under non-indigenous domination were oppressive and unjust in the extreme and needed to be radically and constructively reformed although tragically, that reform was not only disastrously belated, but also very substantially ineffective.
As a result, agriculture was subjected to an avalanche of decline. As against being the source of food for all the country’s people, and an exporter of much produce to neighbouring states (to such extent that it was known as the region’s breadbasket), crops diminished such that Zimbabwe became intensively dependent upon international food aid, and upon imports which it could not readily fund. More than 300 000 farm labourers became unemployed, and the average number of their dependants being six, almost two million were tragically impoverished. Foreign exchange resources diminished to a large extent as the export tobacco crop decreased over an eight year period, from 237 million kgs in 2001 to less than 50 million kgs in 2008. Agriculture’s downstream economy was negatively impacted, through the loss of spending by farmers and their labour. The entire economy contracted exponentially.
The need to address the land ownership inequalities was recognised at the pre-Independence Lancaster House negotiations in 1979, to the extent that Britain, the former colonial power, pledged to make significant funding available for indigenous land acquisition. That acquisition was to be on a “willing buyer, willing seller” basis, and over the first five years of Independence Britain honoured that commitment, disbursing substantial amounts to fund the first phases of indigenous land ownership. The next step towards land reform was that farms could not be sold, and ownership transferred, without the transacting parties first obtaining from government a “certificate of no interest”, which constituted governmental consent to the sales. Progressively, there was increasing indigenous ownership, although not to a very major extent, as most of the populace could not fund land acquisitions. Agriculture continued to thrive and to be the country’s economic mainstay.
But then government went berserk. Driven substantially by endemic racial hatred, desires of self-enrichment, hatred of the former colonialists, and perceived entrenchment of voter support, it embarked upon the devastating pursuit of vesting ownership of all rural lands in the state, and acquisition of millions and millions of hectares of farm land, embarking on much ill-considered and indiscriminate redistribution. And it did so without any payment of compensation, contending that any compensation for land had to be paid by Britain. Although government undertook to compensate for improvements and movables on the land, more than 10 years later, it has failed to do so.
If agriculture is to be restored to its former glory, and if Zimbabwe is to enjoy comprehensive economic recovery, it is of extreme urgency that the ill-conceived and grossly mismanaged land reform programme be revamped. That reformation does not mean a recission, but a restructuring, to be economically effective, just and morally correct. Distressingly, the Medium Term Policy for Zimbabwe’s economy does not address the essentially needed reforms.
Key elements of the required reforms to regain total agricultural viability are:
Ideally, absolute ownership of the lands must vest in the farmers, and not in the state, and therefore title deeds must be reintroduced. Without ownership, the farmers have no collateral with which to secure the funding needed as working capital, and for development and acquisition of essential equipment. Without access to adequate funds, the farmer has no prospects of achieving viable operations. If (given its ill-conceived, fixative attitude), the reinstatement of title deeds is reprehensibly abhorrent to government, then the compromise, although not ideal, would be for the current 99 year leases to be readily transferrable. Currently, leases have no collateral value for not only are they incapable of cession, but in addition, the 99 year tenure is hypothetical, for the state has the power to terminate the leases on three months’ notice.
Land ownership or lease should not be racially-based but be available to any and all Zimbabweans, irrespective of race, and be conditional only upon the meritorious and productive usage of the land. Linked to this reform, formerly productive non-indigenous farmers should be accorded opportunities of resuming farming operations, thereby not only enhancing the extent of agricultural production, but also according new farmers access to the long-developed skills and experience of those farmers.
Full compensation needs to be given to those who lost their farms. That compensation must be for the land and all that was thereon when the farms were expropriated by the state. Government should not, and cannot, abdicate its responsibility for that compensation, deviously and without foundation seeking to attribute liability to the United Kingdom. Britain honoured its Lancaster House obligations, and it was the Zimbabwean government that disentitled the legitimate landowners (many of whom had had governmental acquisition consent by way of the certificates of no interest). Of especial urgency is where there is compensatory obligation in terms of the numerous Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements, which Zimbabwe has consistently flouted. That default is one of the greatest deterrents to Foreign Direct Investment, which investment is a major key need for Zimbabwean economic recovery.
Agricultural policies must be conducive to the viability of the sector. Parastatals such as the Grain Marketing Board and Cold Storage Company must timeously pay fair, market-related prices for produce, and agriculturally counterproductive policies should not be pursued.
If government could at least recognise the error of its ways, have the maturity to reverse them, and put national interests ahead of its own, in time agriculture will again thrive, and be the mainstay of the economy.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 21 July 2011
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201107251436.html?viewall=1