The compensation contract between the government and white farmers has caused divisions in the House of Assembly, as the main opposition parliamentarians insist they want to scrutinize the terms of the contract before the program commences.
On July 29, 2020, Zimbabwe agreed to pay $3,5 billion in compensation to white farmers who lost their land as the government sought to resettle landless blacks, in one of the most divisive policies of the Robert Mugabe era.
On June 23 this year, legislators pressed the Minister of Finance, Mthuli Ncube, to release the original compensation document for their scrutiny.
Harare North MP Norman Markham (Citizens Coalition for Change) quizzed Ncube over the issue, and demanded that the agreement be released to Parliament for scrutiny.
However, the Finance Minister refused to table before Parliament the original contract signed between the government and white commercial farmers to compensate them for land expropriated during its controversial land reform exercise.
He insisted that releasing the document would violate the terms of the agreement.
“On the Global Settlement Deed, it was my intention to give him a three-page summary and here are my reasons; this is still a document signed under restricted conditions of confidentiality. It only becomes public when they have signed the cessation and when we are ready to pay, and then it comes before this House for approval. I will then table it before this House for approval properly. For now, it is still in abeyance as a negotiation document. We have no wish to release it and if I do, then I am violating the agreement with the farmers, and they will be very upset.”
But Markham insisted that the document should first be scrutinised by Parliament before the payment deadline this month.
“The summarised document is the Global Settlement Deed. The Global Settlement Deed has issues of financing on it, and there is also an issue of extensions. It is important to see the extensions because that payment is due next month,” Markham said.
“On the issue of global funds, it is exactly the same Mr. Speaker. US$3,5 billion is going to some 4 000 farmers who have been waiting 20 years for it and it is still confidential. We as the House need to know what is happening and what we are tying ourselves to for the future. I do not accept any confidential agreement on a loan that I have paid taxes to.”
Markham accused the Executive of entering into numerous loan agreements which it has not brought before Parliament for scrutiny.
The Global Settlement Deed stipulated that the money should be paid out to farmers within the first year, followed by four annual instalments of $437.5 million.
