Government rejects Oppenheimer land offer

Zimbabwe has rejected an offer of land for settlement from the Oppenheimer family, saying it wanted twice as much from the mining magnates, ‘Business Day’ said on Wednesday. The report said an offer of 34,000 hectares was offered as a “gift” to Zimbabwe by Nicky Oppenheimer, chairman of diamond group De Beers. The land was part of the family’s 137,000 hectares Debshan ranch in the arid southwest of the country where 21,000 head of cattle are bred for export to Europe.

Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Jonathan Moyo was quoted in Zimbabwean news reports as saying the government was not satisfied with the offer. “The government will be satisfied with at least 65,000 hectares. The size of the land they offered is obviously unacceptable, considering this ranch is the size of Belgium,” he said. “The clamour for land by peasants in surrounding areas cannot be underplayed. This place dramatises the historical imbalances that we are trying to correct.”

It was the first public response by the government since Oppenheimer personally made the offer to President Robert Mugabe in September last year. Oppenheimer also offered to set up a trust fund to help settlers begin farming. Oppenheimer went to Zimbabwe last year after all 240,000 hectares of the family’s ranches in the southwest were formally listed for compulsory acquisition.