APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina has urged Zimbabwean authorities to expedite the US$3.5 billion compensation of white farmers dispossessed of their properties under the government’s land reform programme in the early 2000s.
Addressing journalists on the sidelines of a one-day debt resolution meeting in Harare on Monday, Adesina said AfDB has developed instruments to assist Zimbabwe to “fast-track and frontload” payments to the farmers and unlock trust among Harare’s other creditors.
“It is important to try and fast track and front load these payments. Further delay will cause lack of trust,” the AfDB chief said.
The Zimbabwean government carried out at times violent evictions of 4,500 white farmers and redistributed the land to about 300,000 black families, arguing that it was redressing colonial land imbalances.
It agreed in 2020 to compensate the white farmers for infrastructure on the expropriated farms and not the land itself as per the country’s constitution.
The southern African nation, however, does not have the money and had proposed to issue treasury bills and jointly approach international donors with the farmers to raise funding, according to the compensation agreement.
The former farmers have, however, turned down the proposal to receive payment within 10 years via treasury bills.
Adesina said the new proposal to former white farmers would “help leverage the capital markets to fund the compensation without adding debt to Zimbabwe.”
Adesina has been appointed by Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa to champion the process to resolve Zimbabwe’s external debt, which stands at more than US$14 billion.
JN/APA