HARARE -- President Robert Mugabe, hisloyalists in ZANU-PF, cabinet ministers, senior army and governmentofficials and judges now own nearly 5 million hectares of agriculturalland, including wildlife conservancies and plantation land, seized fromwhite commercial farmers since 2000, investigations by ZimOnline have revealed.
This means that anew well-connected black elite of about 2 200 people nowcontrol close to half of the most profitable land seized from about 4100 commercial farmers
Even though Mugabehas consistently maintained that his land reform programme is meantto benefit the poor black masses, it is him and his cronies who have gotthe most out of it, according to our three month long investigations.
ZimOnline canconclusively state that Mugabe and his second wife Grace, now own 14farms, worth at least 16 000 hectares in size.
All ministers fromMugabe's ZANU PF in Zimbabwe's coalition government and ZANU PF deputyministers are multiple farm owners. That probably explains why Prime MinisterMorgan Tsvangirai's determined push to have a new land audit done touncover multiple farm owners has persistently hit a brickwall.
Mugabe's deputy JoyceMujuru, alongside his influential husband, former army general Solomon Mujuru,and their relatives, own at least 25 farms with a combined hectarageof more than 105 000.
Critics who have consistently dismissed Zimbabwe's emotional land reforms as apolitical patronage programme by the octogenarian Mugabe to reward supporterswho have kept him in power are right after all.
But the veteranleader insists the programme is meant to redress colonial imbalancesand benefited the povo. Mugabe, whose agrarian reforms have been criticised bythe West, says some 300,000 people have benefitted from the programme.
However, investigationsby ZimOnline have shown that while at least 150,000 ordinary people may havehad access to farms, the majority own between 10 and 50 hectares each after someof the huge farms were subdivided into small plots. But these ordinary peopleonly accessed land on the strengths of their ZANU PF party membership cards.
With the notableexception of Welshman Ncube, the secretary-general of asmall splinter faction of the MDC, no high profile civil society and MDCofficials have benefited from the land seizures.
But some 2,200 wellconnected people – Mugabe, his wife Grace, their top allies, friends andrelatives -- have parcelled among themselves choice farms spanning from 250hectares to as much as 4,000 hectares in the most fertile farming regions inthe country, in clear violation of the government’s own policy of capping farmsizes.
Land the size ofSlovakia
Government documents andinvestigations show that Mugabe and his top allies control nearly 40 percent ofthe 14 million hectares of land seized from whites, which if puttogether are the size of Slovakia, with a population of 5.4 million people.
Before 2000, the 4,500members of the largely white Commercial Farmers’ Union and another 1,500unaffiliated white farmers owned close to 15 million hectares of Zimbabwe’smost arable land and wildlife conservancies.
A decade later, less than400 white farmers remain on the land, with the rest expelled and theirproperties handed over to politically correct blacks.
And research, includingexamination of various government documents and audit reports show that thebiggest beneficiaries of the land reform programme remain ZANU-PF members andsupporters, security service chiefs and officers and traditional chiefs whohave openly sided with Mugabe and senior government officials and judges.
Some top governmentofficials have been fingered in three official audits as multiple farm owners,clearly thumping their noses at the government’s own failed policy of “one manone farm”.
The 86-year-old Mugabeand his young second wife, Grace, are the chief multiple farm owners,with 14 farms in total, including seven in his home province of MashonalandWest and in the agriculture rich district of Mazowe in Mashonaland Central.
The farms measure over16,000 hectares – enough to build 160,000 medium density houses – and include afive-in-one 4,046-hectare property named Gushungo Estate in Darwendalenear Mugabe's rural Zvimba home.
“This is a politicalprogramme camouflaged as land reform because it is clear that land has beentransferred to high profile people and not the landless,” John Worsley-Worswickfrom the vocal Justice For Agriculture (JAG) farmers pressure group said.
Another of Mugabe'sdeputies, John Nkomo is also a multiple farm owner. He now controls thelucrative Jijima wildlife sanctuary in north-west Zimbabwe after hemuscled out a fellow black farmer.
Nkomo, who already ownedanother farm in Matabeleland, seized the Jijima lodge wildlife conservancy(size unkonwn) in north western Zimbabwe in defiance of a High Court orderagainst him.
Asset stripping
Mugabe has not acted onthe multiple farm owners, despite three government land audits which fingeredtop ZANU-PF officials and recommended that they return the farms.
Investigations show thatfor example Edna Madzongwe, Senate Speaker and a Mugabe relative has since 2000seized six productive commercial farms in Chegutu district, Mashonaland Westprovince, farms which she has all but run down.
These are Aitape, CobunEstates, Bourne, Mpofu Farm, Reyden and Stockdale Farm, which she seized froman elderly white couple last year. The farms, which span 5,200 hectares intotal, are all in Chegutu, some 100 kilometres west of capital Harare.
“Some of this can only bedescribed as asset stripping because if you look at the farms now they are nowin a derelict state and Madzongwe keeps hoping from one farm to another,” saida white commercial farmer who lost his farm but declined to be named fearingvictimisation.
Investigations alsoshowed that top politicians have in the past years moved from one farm toanother, stripping them of equipment and selling off the produce, which hasseen some of them rich overnight.
But Madzongwe is only oneof several high-ranking ZANU-PF officials who have more than one farm.
Governor’s five farms
The president of theChiefs’ Council Fortune Charumbira has seized more than four farms in Masvingomeasuring 6,600 hectares in total and Information Minister Webster Shamu ownsLambourne farm and Selous Tobacco Estates in Mashonaland West measuring 1,660hectares.
A government auditcarried in 2002 showed that former Mashonaland West provincial governor PeterChanetsa at one point had five farms spanning 4,000 hectares, former MinesMinister and legislator Chindori Chininga, Local Government Minister IgnatiusChombo, former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo own or have owned multiplefarms at some point.
“It is incumbent on thegovernment and … ZANU-PF to quickly re-align the land reform programmeimplementation to the national land policy in order to reassert its credibilityas a just and democratic programme to equitably redistribute the land in Zimbabweand empower the indigenous people through land ownership,” the audit reportsaid.
Agriculture remains themainstay of Zimbabwe’s economy but production in the sector has plunged by 60percent since 2000 when government-backed land invasions started.
Exports from the sectorhave fallen from $1.4 billion – 41percent of exports – in 2000 to nearly $700million last year, after falling below $500 million in 2007, blamed largely onpoorly equipped new black farmers and lack of farming inputs like seed and fertiliser.
But the downfall inagricultural output is also attributed in part to the fact that a hugechunk of some of the most productive and largest former white-owned commercialfarms hoarded by senior Mugabe political allies are lying fallow either becausethe new owners are not that keen on farming or they simply abandoned theproperties for new farms.
Gov’t to seize excessland
Lands and RuralResettlement Minister Hebert Murerwa said while there were some people withmultiple farms, these were very few and would be forced to give them up.
“The fact that a handfulof people may have more than one farm does not detract from the overwhelmingsuccess of the land reform where the government has created 300,000 new farmersover the last ten years” Murerwa said.
While much has been saidbout the failure of black villagers resettled on former white farms to feedZimbabwe chiefly because they lack financial resources, little is said aboutthe fact that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe went to great lengths -- including employing ratherquestionable methods such as printing money -- to try to fund the new farmers.
The central bank hadbetween 2003 and 2008 pumped in $3 billion in the agriculture sector alone byprinting money and raiding accounts of NGOs and exporters, to buy subsidisedfarming equipment, fuel, seed and fertiliser. But this has mostly benefittedinfluential Mugabe allies, some who are accused of selling inputs on the blackmarket.
Malawi in comparison,which spend half the amount to support its farmers has grown to become a netfood exporter, while Zimbabwe continues to plug a food deficit.
Political analysts sayMugabe has managed to ensure support from the key security service, includingthe army, police and central intelligence, by dishing out prime farms tocommanders and senior officers.
The security forces
Of the nearly 200officers from the rank of Major to the Lieutenant General in the ZimbabweNational Army, 90 percent have farms in the most fertile parts of the country.This is replicated in the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Zimbabwe Prisons Service,Air Force of Zimbabwe and CIO.
In total there are 400officers in the security services alone who are known to have farms above 250hectares, often seized at gun point from the previous white owners whileseveral lower ranking officers and war veterans also have smaller holdings.
Constantine Chiwenga, theZimbabwe Defence Forces Commander, who is among a cabal of Defence Forceschiefs who have publicly declared that they will only serve Mugabe, has twofarms near Harare, including the 1,200 hectare Chakoma Estates, which his wifeseized at gunpoint, telling a terrified white farmer that she lusted for whiteblood and sought the slightest excuse to kill him.
Perence Shiri, a veteranof the liberation struggle whose record was soiled during his command of anarmy crack unit in an insurgency crackdown in Matabeleland in early 1980s, hastwo farms, the 1,460 hectare Eirin farm in Marondera, which he seized afterevicting 96 landless families and the 1,950 hectare banana producing BambooCreek in Shamva.
Augustine Chihuri,Mugabe’s loyal Police Commissioner General owns Woodlands Farm (size unknown)in Shamva.
In the past year morethan a dozen senior army and air force officers with have used armed soldiersto evict white commercial farmers.
In August last yearBrigadier General Justin Mujaji evicted white farmer Charles Lock from his 376hectare Karori farm in Headlands district east of Harare and defied severalHigh Court orders, including one meant to allow Lock to take his tobacco andmaize crop and equipment.
“Clearly there is acommon thread here, where the military which is supposed to defend its citizensbrazenly terrorises them in the name of land reform,” said John Makumbe,a University of Zimbabwe political lecturer and Mugabe critic.
Politburo and judges
All of ZANU-PF’s 56politburo members, 98 Members of Parliament and 35 elected and unelectedSenators were allocated former white farms, all 10 provincial governors haveseized farms, with four being multiple owners, while 65 percent of thecountry’s more than 200 mostly partisan traditional chiefs have also benefitedfrom the land reforms.
Sixteen Supreme Court andHigh Court Judges, including Chief Justice Chidyausiku, who owns the 1 000hectare Estes Park farm in Mazowe/Concession district, also own large farmsranging between 540 to 1380 hectares.
Forty serving and formerambassadors have been allocated farms, with 70 percent of Parastatals bossesalso owning large tracts of land.
Investigations have alsorevealed that Mugabe’s personal banker and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governorGideon Gono surprisingly does not own a farm given to him by government but hasmanaged to buy four farms, including the prime 4,000 hectare Donnington farm inNorton he purchased in 2001.
Sources said Gono, who atthe time was CBZ Holdings chief executive who personally authorised loans forsenior government officials, bought the farms at knockdown prices from farmerswho were under pressure from invaders to leave their properties.
"The white farmershave simply been replaced by a new black elite," said a source. But whilethe old white farmers regarded farming as a profession and most worked theirland full time maintaining Zimbabwe as the bread basket of Africa , the Mugabecronies who have replaced them largely fit the mould of what Mugabe himself hasdescribed as "mobile phone farmers".
They are largelyresponsible for converting Zimbabwe into a basket case as they have used theirland more for weekend recreation.
Minister of State in VicePresident Joyce Mujuru's office, Sylvester Nguni, himself a huge land owner,once accused his fellow ZANU PF officials of only acquiring vast swathes ofland "for pride" as they had dismally failed to use their land manyyears after they seized it.
While most of the seizedland controlled by these top Mugabe cronies continue to lie fallow, mostof the poor peasants and small holder farmers in communal and otherbetter areas account for most of the improvements in agricultural output lastyear.
In fact, the peasantfarmers accounted for more than half of Zimbabwe's total maize productioneven before the mass evictions of white landowners who mostly focusedon cash crops.
Sources say if theland reforms had been based on a transparent poverty alleviation thresholds andproperly implemented with the right beneficiaries being selected andempowered without Mugabe's patronage considerations, the white farmers would largelyhave not been missed.
But even the 350 000black farm workers, who many had thought would be among the initialtargets or beneficiaries of land reforms were largely ignored.
Unconfirmed reports saymany of the former farm labourers have died due to poverty after they wereevicted alongside their former white employers. The few who remained on thefarms have to content with the new black landowners who don't invest on theproperties and pay them starvation wages. -- ZimOnline
LIST OF ZIMBABWE’S TOP FARM OWNERS
*The list is not exhaustive as district landofficers who have the knowledge of farm owners in any given district were insome cases unwilling to disclose such details for fear of possible reprisals.
NAME | FARM | SIZE | AREA |
R. MUGABE | Gushungo Estates | 4046ha | Mazowe |
Gushungo Dairies | 1000ha | Mazowe | |
Iron Mask Estate | 1046ha | Mazowe | |
Sigaru Farm | 873ha | Mazowe | |
Gwebi Wood | 1200ha | Mazowe | |
Gwina Farm | 1445ha | Banket | |
Leverdale Farm | 1488ha | Banket | |
Highfield Farm | 445ha | Norton | |
Cressydale Estate | 676ha | Norton | |
Tankatara Farm | 575ha | Norton | |
John O’Groat Farm | 760ha | Norton | |
Clifford Farm | 1050ha | Norton | |
Bassiville | 1200ha | Norton | |
S & M. MUJURU | Alamein Farm | 1300ha | Beatrice |
JOHN NKOMO | Gijima Lodge | xxx | Hwange |
SIMON KHAYA MOYO | Marula Block 36 | 2034ha | Bulilamangwe |
CABINET MINISTERS | |||
Joseph Made | Tara Farm | 840ha | Odzi |
Emmerson Mnangagwa | Sherwood Farm | 1600ha | Kwekwe |
Francis Nhema | Nyamanda | 1000ha | Karoi |
Stanislaus Mudenge | Chikore Farm | 760ha | Masvingo |
Kembo Mohadi | Jopembe Block | 3000ha | Beitbridge |
Benlynian Range | 3200ha | Beitbridge | |
Patrick Chinamasa | Tsukumai | 800ha | Headlands |
Nyamazura | 1260ha | Rusape | |
Hebert Murerwa | Rise Holm | 1100ha | Arcturus |
Ignatius Chombo | Allan Grange | 3000ha | Banket |
Oldham | 400ha | Chegutu | |
Shingwiri | 1600ha | Chegutu | |
Webster Shamu | Lambourne Farm | 1340ha | Selous |
Tobacco Estate | 900ha | Chegutu | |
Obert Mpofu | Young Farm | 2300ha | Nyamandlovu |
Umguza Block 39, 40, 41 | 6200ha | Umguza | |
Auchenberg | 1026ha | Nyamandlovu | |
Sithembiso Nyoni | Fountain Farm | 3100ha | Insiza |
Walter Mzembi | BW Farm | 720ha | Masvingo |
Nicholas Goche | Ceres Farm | xxx | Shamva |
Savior Kasukuwere | Conucorpia Farm | 100ha | Mazowe |
Didymus Mutasa | Harmony Farm | 500ha | Mazowe |
Sydney Sekeramayi | Maganga Farm | 620ha | Marondera |
Edna Madzongwe | Aitape Farm | 2000ha | Chegutu |
Coburn Estates Plot 13A | 560ha | Chegutu | |
Bourne Farm | 445ha | Chegutu | |
Mpofu Farm | 1200ha | Chegutu | |
Stockdale Farm | 750ha | Chegutu | |
Reyden Farm | 1340ha | Chegutu | |
SECURITY SERVICES | |||
Constantine Chiwenga | Chakoma Estates | 1276ha | Goromonzi |
Perence Shiri | Bamboo Creek | 1950ha | Shamva |
Eirin Farm | 1460ha | Marondera | |
Augustine Chihuri | Woodlands Farm | xxx | Shamva |
Paradzayi Zimondi | Upton Farm | 1029ha | Goromonzi |
Happyton Bonyongwe | Thetford Farm | ||
Henry Muchena | Serui Drift | 1500ha | Chegutu |
Abu Basutu | Swallowfork Ranch | 2711ha | West Nicholson |
Elson Moyo | Daisy Farm | 1600ha | Chegutu |
JUDGES | |||
Godfrey Chidyausiku | Estes Park | 895ha | Concession |
Luke Malaba | Marula Block 35 | 1866ha | Bulilamangwe |
Paddington Garwe | Faun Farm | 760ha | Chegutu |
Antonia Guvava | Harndale Farm | 1000ha | Chegutu |
Mafios Cheda | Marula Block 37 | 3039ha | Bulilamangwe |
Ben Hlatshwayo | Kent Estate | 800ha | Norton |
Charles Hungwe | Little England | 6956ha | Makonde |
Chitakunye Alfias | The Grange | 1300ha | Chegutu |
PROVINCIAL GOVERNORS | |||
David Karimanzira | Arcadia Farm | 1300ha | Marondera |
Cain Mathema | Gwayi Ranch | 4600ha | Gwayi |
Umguza Block | 3700ha | Umguza | |
Chris Mushohwe | Kondozi Farm | 400ha | Odzi |
Titus Maluleke | Clipshap Farm | 3000ha | Masvingo |
Thokozile Mathutu | Dete Valley Farm | 2800ha | Dete |
Anthonia Extension | 6500ha | Umguza | |
Angeline Masuku | Wollendale Farm | 3000ha | Gwanda |
Cephas Msipa | Cheshire Farm | 2100ha | Gweru |
ZANU-PF/GOVT HIGH RANKING OFFICIAL | |||
Reward Marufu | Leopards Vlei | 1294ha | Glendale |
Kachere Farm | 880ha | Mazowe | |
Sabina Mugabe | Mlembwe Farm | 1037ha | Makonde |
Longwood Farm | 924ha | Makonde | |
Gowrie Farm | 430ha | Norton | |
Leo Mugabe | Diandra | 815ha | Darwandale |
Nangadza | 1200ha | Mhangura | |
Journey’s End | 3000ha | Makonde | |
Patrick Zhuwao | Marivale Farm | 244ha | Mazowe |
George Charamba | Battlefields 02 | 1572ha | Kwekwe |
Nathan Shamuyarira | Mt Carmel | xxx | Chegutu |
Bright Matonga | Lions Vlei | 2000ha | Chegutu |
Amos Midzi | Magudu Ranch | 10701ha | Chiredzi |
Dick Mafios | Insingizi Farm | 1100ha | Bindura |
Melfort | 554ha | Mazowe | |
Joseph Chinotimba | Watakai | 1240ha | Mazowe |
Happison Muchechetere | Burry Hill Estate | 617ha | Makonde |
Tobaiwa Mudede | Ballineety | 3147ha | Nyabira |
Austin Zvoma | Chinomwe Estates | 1432ha | Makonde |
Mariyawanda Nzuwa | Stella Burton | 425ha | Mazowe |
David Parirenyatwa | Rudolphia | 802ha | Murewa |
Charles Utete | Rudzimi | 3350ha | Lomagundi |
Paddy Zhanda | Chipfumbi Meadows | 1364ha | Goromonzi |
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