Current policy on land ownership unchanged - Minister

Authorities in Zimbabwe have denied that the government planned to nationalise all productive farmland, saying this only applied to land acquired under its fast-track land reform programme. Last week Land Reform and Resettlement Minister John Nkomo told the official Herald newspaper: "All land shall be state land and there will be no such thing called private land." He said the state planned to abolish title deeds and would issue 99-year leases, referred to as "in perpetuity", on productive farmland, and 25-year leases on wildlife and conservation areas. The announcement immediately raised fears that the move would undermine efforts to restore confidence in the struggling economy. On Tuesday the country's publicity and information department said Nkomo had been "misquoted" in the Herald newspaper, as there were "no intentions of changing the current policy on land tenure and ownership". "Minister Nkomo's statements were taken out of context. The government has always maintained that only land acquired under the fast-track land reform programme will revert to the state. If land is not earmarked for acquisition, then the landlord still has title deed ownership," press secretary in the ministry of information, Steyn Berejena, told IRIN. Beneficiaries could access acquired land under a 99-year lease agreement, provided it was used for agricultural purposes. Critics remained unconvinced by the government's attempts to clarify its position on land reform, and accused the authorities of "backtracking". "It is obvious that Nkomo did not fully realise the implication of his statements. By suggesting that the government would undertake what amounts to wholesale nationalisation, he in fact undermined the efforts of his colleagues, who over the last couple of months have been desperately trying to restore some faith in the Zimbabwean economy," said economist Dennis Nikisi, director of the Graduate School of Management at the University of Zimbabwe. Nikisi added that Nkomo's statements had sparked concerns that nationalisation would not stop at farmlands but extend to residential, commercial and industrial properties. According to one legal expert, the Harare government would have to side-step the country's constitution if it pushed ahead with nationalisation. Constitutional expert Greg Linington said: "Section 16 of the constitution explicitly protects title deed holders. While the Land Acquisition Bill empowered the government to seize millions of hectares of land, the authorities would still have to seek to amend the constitution if they wanted to broadly nationalise all farmlands." In terms of the Land Acquisition Bill, the minister of lands has been empowered to seize some 11 million hectares of agricultural land, a figure which already covers almost all privately owned farmland in the country.