The Zimbabwe Government has banned all private land ownership and will nationalise all farmland and privately-owned game parks. The move has been described as the "single biggest shock" of President Robert Mugabe's rule since independence from Britain in 1980. "This has effectively turned back the clock and put Zimbabwe back into the centuries-old feudal economic systems which benefited the kings and their aristocrats and impoverished the poor," said prominent Zimbabwean economist John Robertson. | "This land is Bob's land, that land is Bob's land, from the jungle forests, to the Lake Kariba waters! This land was made for Bob and....Bob." |
In an announcement in the state-owned Herald newspaper, John Nkomo, the Special Affairs Minister in the President's office in charge of Land Reform and Resettlement, ordered all private landowners to give up their land to the Government immediately. He said they could then apply to the Government for permission to lease the land. He did not say when the nationalisation process would be completed. "In the end all land shall be state land and there will be no such thing called private land," Nkomo said. "It will now be the state which will enable the utilisation of the land for national prosperity." Title deeds for all land now being nationalised and appropriated by the state would have 99-year leases, he said. Leases on the predominantly white-owned private game parks would be limited to 25 years to allow many more black people to partake in the lucrative sector. The Zimbabwe Government has been seizing all white-owned farms and re-allocating them to blacks to promote private ownership of land by blacks, previously disadvantaged by colonial era policies. The latest move means even those blacks have now been deprived of their private ownership of land, as all land will now be owned by the state. | That should be....interesting |
"Effectively, this means it is no longer possible for any person to use land or any building on that land - be it a house or factory - as collateral to borrow money from banks as it is classified as state land," said a Government economist, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is no better and quicker way of destroying an economy. I frankly don't know who advised them on this unacceptable step." | Bob may be channeling the spirits of Joe Stalin and Chairman Mao. |
Robertson said the move would effectively stop any new foreign investment in Zimbabwe. It would also freeze all economic growth, as no one would have collateral to borrow money and develop their business. Nkomo disputed that, saying the people approved as leaseholders could use the 99-year leases as collateral. But Robertson said: "A lease has no collateral or market value. A lease means you don't own the property and no bank can regard something you don't own as collateral. "The figure 99 years is totally irrelevant because you still don't own the property." | What do you need property for when Bob is there to take care of you? |
The decision to nationalise all land is being seen as the final nail in the coffins of all 4000-plus white farmers whose land had already been seized but had been hoping to somehow get it back. The remaining white farmers, estimated at fewer than 400, would have to give up their land with no hope of getting it back. It is highly unlikely that Mugabe would consider giving leases to white farmers since he has been compulsorily taking their land and driving them out of the country. The move also means the legal process of serving notices of acquisition of properties on farmers is no longer necessary as they simply forfeit their land to the state. | Saves all that messy paperwork |
A farmer who was last week served with a notice for the compulsory seizure of his farm said he had given up all hope. "It would be plain futile for me to even contemplate trying to fight for my rights now. The reasonable thing for me is to leave this country and start elsewhere before I am caught in the next storm of Mugabe madness. If they can do this thing in this day and age, what can stop them from announcing they are seizing my refrigerator, and then my stove and in the end my wife ... " |