Title Deeds to 4 000 Farms Nullified
Source: The Herald (Harare)
Date: 23 September 2005
Author: Anon
[The] Government has directed the Registrar of Deeds to immediately nullify all title deeds to the 4 000 farms which have been nationalised following the recently promulgated Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No.17) Act.
The former owners of the farms were contesting the acquisition of the properties by the Government and the cases were still pending at the Administrative Court. The Government put to rest the land question through the promulgation of the Act, which bars courts from hearing appeals contesting the acquisition of commercial farms that it would have been identified and repossessed.
The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, said the constitutional amendment would immediately convert the 4 000 farms to State property.
All pieces of agricultural land which appeared in section 5 notices gazetted from June 2000 to 14 September 2005, the date of the publication of the constitutional amendment Bill, are now State property available for redistribution.
"Thereafter, there will be a mopping up exercise with those farms who escaped the net being accounted for and gazetted for acquisition. The conflict, which has haunted the Land Acquisition process right back from 1990, will thus come to an end. And we can hope to spend our energies in a different direction towards re-surveying and re-pegging new boundaries, rationalising land allocations, issuing leases or approved land tenure instruments," aid Cde Chinamasa.
The Registrar of Deeds was obligated immediately to cancel all title deeds in respect of agricultural land which has become State property following the publication of the constitutional amendments, he added.
Cde Chinamasa reiterated the Government position that the British government was obliged to pay compensation for the land, other than improvements made on the basis of their illegal dispossession of the natives and because of an undertaking the British and American governments made at the 1979 Lancaster House Conference.
He made a comparison between Kenya and Zimbabwe, both former British colonies. In Kenya, Britain made available more than 500 million pound sterling towards compensation, but only 35 million pounds was made available to Zimbabwe by the British Conservative government in 1980.
Thereafter, the new Labour government of Mr Tony Blair reneged on that commitment resulting in the Zimbabwe Government repossessing land and allocating it to its rightful owners.
He said Government could have nationalised the land long back but could not do that in 1990 because the British Conservative government was co-operating in giving compensation to white settler farmers. The Government could also not nationalise the land in 2000 because Zanu-PF did not command the mandatory two-thirds majority in Parliament.
Cde Chinamasa said now that the land was in the hands of indigenous people, the country was on the springboard of economic development.
He said the country was endowed with educated people with technical qualities. The minister also said in order to safeguard and protect the interests of the nation, the amendment to the Constitution added three more grounds upon which derogation from the freedom of movement would be permitted. An enabling legislation would soon be passed to fully implement the policy intentions.
The amendments on movement of people arose as a result of some citizens who went abroad to call for sanctions and military intervention in Zimbabwe and Cde Chinamasa warned those people that they will only have themselves to blame if they continued with their unlawful conduct. He said people were free to prefer British, American, Australian or Canadian citizenship but they should not demonstrate their intention to acquire those citizenships by first injuring the national, public or economic interest of the host country.
The Government, said the minister, made several constitutional amendments to allow immigrants who have become an integral part of Zimbabwe to acquire Zimbabwe citizenship easily and on demand.
By doing this, Zimbabwe again became the only Sadc country that has opened up its citizenship so widely to descendants from neighbouring countries, he said.