Zimbabwe pays local and foreign farmers who lost land because of land attacks

The finance minister said on Friday that the Zimbabwean government will pay $20 million to foreign white and local black farmers who lost land in farm raids under former leader Robert Mugabe at the turn of the century. The payment will happen this month.

The money was set aside in the budget for 2024 as part of a plan to help the country’s farming industry get back to where it used to be and start a long-awaited economic recovery.

When Mugabe watched the taking over of very productive farms in 2000, farming fell apart. Most of them were owned by white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe after being taken from Black people by colonists in the early 1900s.

But some black Zimbabweans and white farmers from other countries also lost property in the seizures that happened 25 years ago. Many of them were unplanned and unplanned, and they mostly helped people with ties to the ruling ZANU-PF party.

Mthuli Ncube said that 400 Black Zimbabweans and foreign farmers from Belgium, Germany, and other countries are among the victims who will be paid.

In 2020, a different, much bigger plan for $3.5 billion to help 4,000 white Zimbabwean farmers was announced. However, the money has not been sent because Zimbabwe is having money problems.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over from Mugabe in a coup in 2017, has tried to work with Western governments to fix ties, pay off Zimbabwe’s huge foreign debt, and boost the country’s economy. However, last year’s elections, which were seen as not free and fair by many, did little to regain donor confidence.

“The dialogue process is working and will help us in clearing our arrears eventually,” he said.

Zimbabwe hasn’t been able to use the global financial system in more than 20 years because it didn’t pay its debts. This has also stopped supporters from giving the country money.

As a first step toward getting out of debt, the country wants a program supervised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Ncube said that an IMF team will visit Harare in the next two weeks.

“A staff monitored IMF programme … is necessary to help us clear our debt arrears, which are an albatross around our economy,” he said.

Zimbabwe owes $12 billion in foreign loans to the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB), 16 members of the Paris Club, and other private lenders.