Increasing number of white commercial farmers secretly returning to farms in Zimbabwe: Report

"Mashonaland West and the Midlands provinces have the highest number of white lessees. That being the case, the land reform is now a joke. The creation of black land-owning rentier class whose sole function is to extract rent from land is a negation of land reform program. It is a true reflection of how lost and how vacuous Zanu PF under (President) Emmerson (Mnangagwa) has become. This parasitic class of landlords must be expunged."

An increasing number of white commercial farmers are secretly returning to the farms by leasing them from non-productive black beneficiaries, said Tendai Bitti, according to a report by New Zimbabwe. The co-vice president of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Tendai Bitti said that these black beneficiaries have failed in utilizing these lands and made a mockery out of the much-touted land reform program.

The controversial land reform exercise was launched by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) government. In the exercise, 4,000 white farmers granted their land to thousands of landless Zimbabweans as per the reports. Regardless of the settlement, the process has been a failure due to lack of resources, illegal occupation, land disputes, among the resettled indigenous farmers and the beneficiaries, according to the analysts in the country.

Talking about the development, Biti said that some expelled white farmers were returning to their farms granting individual lease agreements according to a brief study, with the new black farm beneficiaries. He quotes, "a cursory study of the land reform process shows massive and existence of leases of acquired land to former white farmers,"

Biti added, "Mashonaland West and the Midlands provinces have the highest number of white lessees. That being the case, the land reform is now a joke. The creation of black land-owning rentier class whose sole function is to extract rent from land is a negation of land reform program. It is a true reflection of how lost and how vacuous Zanu PF under (President) Emmerson (Mnangagwa) has become. This parasitic class of landlords must be expunged."

He continued by calling on an urgent land audit saying, "an urgent land audit is required to root out these parasites. The sitting white tenants must be given offer letters on one household, one farm principle. More importantly, the black parasitic landlords must pay and fund the US$ 3.5 billion in compensation to whites. Zanu PF is pathetic".

The government seemed to be failing the reform since Emmerson Mnangagwa, the President of Zimbabwe has reportedly signed a deal costing a total of US$3.5 billion for developments on the land seized from white commercial farmers.