President Mnangagwa wants to compensate White Farmers billions of dollars, who had their farms illegally taken from them !!!
President who replaced Mugabe wants to end economic isolation.
Funds from bond sale would be used to fund infrastructure
Zimbabwe’s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, said he plans to pay billions of dollars in compensation for land improvements to white farmers who lost their property in seizures almost two decades ago and may approach international bond markets to raise funds for infrastructure to revive the country’s moribund economy.
Mnangagwa, 75, sees resolving the land issue as a key step to end the southern African nation’s isolation that saw the economy halve in size during the past 18 years of the rule of former president Robert Mugabe.
A program to redistribute land to black Zimbabweans who were dispossessed during colonial rule slashed exports, and that, together with a series of elections marred by violence and irregularities, prompted sanctions by western countries, hyperinflation and the withdrawal of credit lines by international lenders. Mugabe resigned in November under pressure from the military.
“We will continue to compensate; it is going to cost a lot of money,”
Mnangagwa said Thursday in an interview at his offices in Harare, the capital.
“I believe it will come to billions down the line.”
Mnangagwa said Thursday in an interview at his offices in Harare, the capital.
“I believe it will come to billions down the line.”
Mnangagwa was Mugabe’s right-hand man for more than half a century through the liberation war against white-ruled Rhodesia and since independence in 1980. He faces a dire economic situation: a 90 percent jobless rate and a cash shortage so severe that some people sleep near banks in the streets of Harare to ensure they can make withdrawals limited to $40 a week.
Mnangagwa must try to revive an agricultural industry that was once the envy of neighboring countriess, unlock investment in mining and reestablish credit lines. Farmers who lost properties will only be compensated for developments such as dams and barns rather than the land itself.
“We were a colony where our land was taken by the colonizer and we went to war in order to reverse that situation,” he said. “The reform was a necessity. It is now behind us, but what we can do is to make sure it is not abused.”
Caps on farm sizes will be imposed and all Zimbabweans, including white farmers who lost their property, are welcome to participate in the industry, he said, adding that there needs to be investment in processing crops and marketing them. Zimbabwe was once the world’s second-biggest exporter of top grade tobacco and also exported corn, paprika and roses.
Mnangagwa fled Zimbabwe after Mugabe fired him as vice president on Nov. 6 following accusations by his wife, Grace Mugabe, that the former spy chief was plotting a coup. An intervention by the armed forces and a decision by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front to back Mnangagwa as its leader and to begin impeachment proceedings against Mugabe prompted the president to step down.
While the government is already in talks with international lenders such as the International Monetary Fund about paying arrears and restoring credit lines, it may also sell bonds, he said.
“We are saying this has happened to other countries and it helped them,” Mnangagwa, who wore a gray suit in an office decorated with photographs of himself as a young man and a crocodile-themed mug, a reference to his nickname earned during the liberation war.
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