Moving forward in Zimbabwe - Brooks World Poverty Institute - The ...

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Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth a lack of transparency in land allocation had crept in as most of the land acquired for resettlement remained unallocated but was being leased to selected state officials. In reality, most of this land in Matabeleland remained unallocated in part because of security problems in the region at the time and also because the types of models being suggested were unpopular with beneficiaries. Apart from helping to de-emphasise rapid land resettlement, the ESAP had a more direct impact on the land resettlement policy. Two developments are worth noting. Firstly, the target beneficiaries gradually changed from the poor and landless to those with the capability to make the land productive. Although on paper the programme professed to be pro-poor, in reality members of the bureaucratic elite began to benefit more. This in itself affected donor funding as donors did not wish to fund commercial farming that was not linked to poverty alleviation. Secondly, the technical models also changed significantly. A new variant of Model A was introduced. This offered ten times the amount of land in the original A1 model. Clearly, the resettlement programme was being oriented toward the non-poor households. We can say therefore that the ESAP programme significantly influenced the resettlement policy. A further policy factor to emerge in the 1990s was the changes to the land policy following the expiry of the constitutional restraint clause. We look at this in the next section. 3.10 Land reform and resettlement after the Restraint Clause: 1990-present Land reform and resettlement phase 1, 1990-1999 As part of the settlement negotiations at Lancaster House in 1979 a constitutional clause was included that called for a moratorium on constitutional reforms during the first ten years of independence. This means clauses that limited the nature and form of land resettlement could not be altered in the first ten years. The restraint clause in the Lancaster House Constitution came to an end in 1990. All along this had been blamed for the slow pace of resettlement. It was therefore not inconceivable that substantial changes would take place. Effectively this meant the government could radically alter its approach to land if it so wished. A precursor to changes in the offing came towards the end of the 1980s when a draft Land Policy paper was circulated. This was published officially in December 1990. It contained proposals for the new policy regime to replace the one agreed at the Lancaster House talks. Three fundamental changes were proposed. The first was that the state could designate land for resettlement. This meant that the state could get all the land it wanted but still pay compensation at market rates. This does not seem to be a radical departure from the provisions of the 1986 Land Acquisition Act. It was just the element of compulsion that appeared to be new in this Act. However, even this was not new since the state could easily have used clauses in the Regional Town and Country Planning Act of 1976 to compulsorily acquire land. Secondly, the policy made known for the first time the final land use arrangement the state envisioned. Table 3.6 shows the final determination of land use that was envisaged. We can see from Table 3.6 that the intention of the policy was to expand considerably the amount of land under resettlement. More significant, however, is the fact that most of the land would come from the large-scale commercial farms. This was a major sore point in the late 1990s as most of the farmers were unwilling to sell and the government was broke. Table 3.6: National strategic land holding structure. Tenure category Actual in 1980 A third element of change introduced by the land policy was a shift in the objectives of land reform and resettlement. Following a well-publicised scandal in which government farms were being leased to the bureaucratic elites, the new policy reflected a limited mission to both the poor and a significant gain for the bureaucratic elite. It has been shown that the bureaucratic elite became a major interest group in the resettlement programme in the late 1980s and 1990s, a factor that affected the poverty orientation of the programme (Bratton, 1987; Alexander, 1994). From the largely social, justice-based objectives of the 1980s, the new objectives became more to do with creating a new class of black large-scale commercial farmers. The criteria for selection of beneficiaries also changed remarkably to emphasise interest, resources and most importantly, skill. For most donors there seemed little justification in using public funds to buy farms that would benefit non-poor individuals. Launch of land reform and resettlement Phase 2 By 1996, the land resettlement had virtually ground to a halt. Apart from declining capacity to plan and implement the programme, donor support had all but ceased, cutting off much needed resources. With political pressure for more transfer of land to take place, the state sought to revive planned resettlement through a reformulated programme that would be acceptable to major donors (Moyo, 2001). At the same time, the then Overseas Development Administration (ODA) dispatched a mission to assess how the UK government could help revive a programme of planned resettlement. The ODA team produced a report that suggested a new programme could be piloted over a two-year period before a major programme got under way. When a new government took over in the UK in 1997, the programme stalled as new priorities for international development assistance were worked out. Impatient to start the programme the Zimbabwe state went ahead with a donors’ conference in September 1998 at which it announced the launch of Phase 2 of the land resettlement programme. The policy document for Phase 2 outlined the main target beneficiaries as: 1. Poor households from the communal areas; 2. Displaced farm workers; and Area (million hectares) Targets of 1990 land Actual 1997 Large scale Commercial 15.5 6.0 12.1 Small-scale Commercial 1.4 1.4 1.4 Communal 16.4 16.4 16.4 Resettlement - 8.3 3.6 National Parks and other 6.0 6.0 6.0 State Land 0.3 1.5 0.1 Total 39.6 39.6 39.6 Sources: GoZ, 1998c; GoZ, 1998d. 3. Special groups such as women, ex-combatants, agricultural graduates, master farmers and persons of means and ability who intend to engage in agriculture. 46
Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth Model type Land area Table 3.7: New models of land resettlement proposed in LRRP 2. Number of households A1 2,470,000 68,314 Design characteristics and tenure Family has title over homestead and arable blocks (3-6ha). Common grazing land under group title. A2 800,000 15,827 Individual family plot 50-350 ha depending on region. Each family has consolidated title. Three-Tier 1,730,000 2,811 Irrigation - 4,050 Total 5,000,000 91,000 180 ha communal grazing, 3 ha arable and homestead allocations, individual titles. Common land is registered under group title. Each family has title over homestead and arable blocks. Common land is registered under group title. The target beneficiary groups reflected the mixture of social and economic objectives in the new policy and programme. Four different models of resettlement were introduced for the different social groups, outlined in Table 3.7. It can be seen from Table 3.7 that the new programme had integrated tenure reform into land resettlement. The beneficiary households would now hold individual title over arable land and group title for communal grazing land. An interesting observation is that in Phase 2, the co-operative model B schemes had been scrapped following adverse evaluations and were to be re-planned into the various individual plot schemes. The state still thought the 91,000 households could be resettled over ten years at a cost of US$1.9 billion (GoZ, 1998c: 6). This was unrealistic, especially when it was considered that the state had failed to resettle that number in almost twenty years. Donors on the other hand insisted on piloting the models and involving the beneficiary households in the design of the models. The state took this as procrastination. We can say that the failed donor conference marked a crucial turning point in policy, as from then the state announced it would go it alone. The policy had clearly changed and from then on the political context for a combination of extra judicial and quasi-legal expropriation of private commercial farmland had been set. Land reform and resettlement Phase 3, 2000-Present Once the donors’ conference had failed to raise the funds that the state needed to operationalise Phase 2 and the state lost a referendum for constitutional reforms, it seemed as if prospects for an orderly transfer of land had all but disappeared. Although the World Bank and other donors came up with the idea of piloting innovative resettlement models over two years before trying to seek further support for a wider programme, the state saw this as too little too late. It was under pressure from restless peasants, and was facing urban unrest and a declining economy. Already in 1998 some villagers from Svosve Communal Lands had invaded neighbouring farms, only to be persuaded back with a promise that they would be resettled. In February 2000 when a group of veterans from the war of liberation invaded two farms that had previously been purchased by the state but had not been resettled, it looked like an isolated grievance over the slow pace of land resettlement. There are conflicting views on the complicity of the state or elements linked to the state in instigating the invasions but what is clear is that the state did not stop the invasions this time round. Some suggest this was done to gain political mileage in the impending election in June 2000. Within months, however, the invasions had spread to all the commercial farming areas across the country, taking on a more violent turn. In the past the state had moved in to persuade the villagers to leave the commercial farmers to continue with their work, and in cases where this was not done, the courts came in to enforce property rights. It was at this point that the state decided that it was taking all land without paying. It would only pay for improvements when able to. This was the most controversial component. When the mainly white commercial farmers sought relief from the courts of law, it was felt that judicial activism by judges was stalling expropriation of land and constitutional amendments were passed to ensure that the state could nationalise all land and redistribute it. Table 3.8 shows the key legislative changes that enabled expropriation to take place. Table 3.8: Key enabling legal instruments for Fast Track Land Reform. Legal Instrument Constitutional Amendment 16 of 2000 Land Acquisition Act 15 of 2000 Statutory Instrument 288 of 2000 Land Acquisition Amendment Act number 1 of 2004 The Acquisition of Farm materials Act No 7 of 2004 Constitutional Amendment 17 of 2005 Gazetted Land(Consequential Provisions) Act 2006 Effect State will pay for improvement on farms but liability to pay compensation for expropriated land shifted to the UK. Allowed state to delay payments on improvements to land for up to five years and gave state right to pay in cash, bonds or other securities. Maximum farm sizes according to region enforced. Allowed state to seize more land beyond the court sanctioned Fast Track Land Reform and Resettlement Programme. State would now target most of the remaining commercial farms. State allowed to take possession of movable assets belonging to evicted farmers (agricultural machinery). Nationalised all land gazetted for resettlement. Made it illegal to remain on acquired land unless former owners secure a state lease. 47
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