Zimbabwe’s government has made its first payment of US$3 million to white farmers whose land was seized during the controversial land reform programme in the early 2000s.
According to Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, the US$3.1 million disbursed so far was part of US$307.9 million that the government has approached the market to raise in the form of Treasury Bills.
The payment announced covers 378 farms out of the 740 approved for compensation, representing just one percent of the US$311 million allocated for the first batch of payments.
“One of our commitments as we try to reform the Zimbabwe economy, to clear our arrears, is really to compensate the former farm owners who lost their farmers,” Ncube said.
“We have now begun to honour that agreement.”
This marks the initial step in fulfilling a 2020 compensation agreement in which the state committed to paying US$3.5 billion for improvements made on seized farmland.
The land reform programme, initiated under former President Robert Mugabe, saw more than 4,000 white farmers forcibly removed from their land between 2000 and 2001.
The initiative aimed to redress colonial-era land injustices by redistributing fertile land to black farmers.
However, the often-violent seizures led to economic decline and strained relations with Western nations.
JN/APA