Chinamasa warns former colonisers

Zanu-PF acting secretary for Information and Publicity Patrick Chinamasa yesterday said land reform was something that the revolutionary party guarded jealously.

Speaking at the ruling party’s weekly press conference, Chinamasa said: “The issues pertaining to the land question where settled in a referendum in 2013 giving rise to our current Constitution.

Section 295 of the Constitution as read with subsections 7 and 8 of section 72 of the Constitution clearly spell out the issues pertaining to compensation for land under three categories: land compulsorily acquired which was owned by indigenous black Zimbabweans, land compulsorily acquired which was owned by citizens of other countries who enjoyed protection under Bilateral Protection Agreements (BIPPAs) and land and falling outside of these two categories

Chinamasa said that land which fell under BIPPAs and compulsorily acquired would not constitute 1 percent of the total hectarage compulsorily acquired.

He warned the MDC-A and the former colonisers to stop lecturing the Government on the land redistribution exercise.

“The MDC and its allies who resisted the land reform process, and begged sanctions for our people to be punished for taking back the land cannot lecture or school us about land reform,” said Chinamasa.

The revolutionary land redistribution programme embarked upon by the Zanu-PF Government from 2000 to date has been a most powerful and effective tool of empowering the previously disadvantaged black population of Zimbabwe and had made the Zimbabwean population, post-colonialism, one of the most empowered populations regionally and continentally.

In order to render the land redistribution programme irreversible in practical terms and to bring finality to the land question, it was incumbent on Government to expedite the issuance of permits to the more than 350 000 households who benefited under the A1 scheme and granting of 99-year leases to the more than 19 000 beneficiaries under the A2 scheme.