‘Land grab’ farmers receive payments

Zimbabwe issued Treasury bonds worth $308m and made small cash payments to white farmers who were dispossessed of their property 25 years ago under a state-backed land reform programme, reports Fin24. The payments are the first under a so-called ‘Global Compensation Deed’ signed in 2020 between the state and the former farm owners in which Zimbabwe committed to paying $3.5bn for improvements done on the farmland. A Land Compensation Committee has approved compensation for 740 former farm owners, with the first 378 farmers paid 1% of the total compensation value of $311m in late March as well as receiving Treasury bonds, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said. Following the cash payment the balance is ‘being paid in US dollar denominated Treasury bonds with a 2% coupon and maturities of two to 10 years,' Ncube said. The payment is the latest attempt to resolve the decades-long dispute triggered by former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe encouraging veterans of the liberation war to evict farmers and their workers from their land in a bid to win support in a close-fought election in 2000. By 2002, at least seven white farmers had been killed alongside dozens of their workers, Human Rights Watch said. That contributed to sanctions being imposed on Zimbabwean politicians by the US, UK and the European Union leading to Zimbabwe’s protracted fallout with the West.

Full Fin24 report