Full contribution
HON. CHIMANIKIRE: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to add my voice in support of this Bill that has been brought before the House by the Minister of Lands and Resettlement. I would like to start with the Chairman’s Report of the Committee. The Chairman of the Committee did point out that there was a short prelude that he gave that details how the land revolution started. I would like to point out some of the omissions. The first nationalist to acquire land and redistribute it was Ndabaningi Sithole at Churu Farm. Government declared that illegal and repossessed his farm and actually distributed it for other purposes. The second group of Africans to embark on land repossession was Chief Svosve in Marondera. I think when we present our reports, let us point out and give credit where it is due.
When it comes to the issue of the Land Commission, in our 2002 manifesto of the MDC, we were the first group to actually speak of bringing sanity to the land redistribution programme by ensuring that we had the land audit and also that we should have a Land Commission to conduct a land audit.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to object to some of the innuendos that were put across yesterday by some of the Hon. Members, to say if I have a family of 10 children, I should have 10 farms. The father and mother should have their own farm and the other 10 children should have their own farms. That is not workable in African families. We have in this country people who have 70/80 children. Are we suggesting that these families should have 80 farms? It does not make sense and hope the Minister takes note of that.
The other area is of taxation. I agree with the speaker earlier on who actually suggested that we should tax arable land. If we go back historically, you find that is why we were paying – I would say drainage, but I could not find the word in English but it is makandiwa. We were paying tax based on makandiwa simply because we were paying for arable land and not for mountains and big snakes that live up the mountain because that is one issue we can never control. So, I think it is a viable proposal that is being put across. So, there is also an issue that I would like to advocate that when the Land Commission does its work, let us look at wild life farming. We are just talking of cattle and whatever it is, but let us look at wild life farming. In our resettlement programmes, the Land Commission should actually take note of areas where there was wild life and it is no longer available. The threat is that when our grand children grow up they will never see a wild hare or a wild buck because in the resettlement programmes, they were abuses of other issues including poaching in some of these areas and we need to redistribute wild animals into some of these areas where we are farming.
Mr. Speaker, I would like also to express my support for the Committee’s recommendations, most of them. However, there is also need for the Land Commission to take note of what is happening of late, where we have a bull in a China shop. Our Chinese colleagues are leasing farms for farming purposes. The problem with what our Chinese colleagues are doing is, instead of concentrating on farming, they are mining illegally within those farms where they are farming. This is an area that should be of concern to Members of this august House where they are mining without accountability. One would like to know where the gold and platinum is going when people move in on ten year leases pretending that they are there to farm.
They do the farming of course but there is illegal mining going on within those farms. The Chinese are very good in saying that you must not trespass into the area where they are farming. In other words, it is very difficult to observe some of these misdemeanours but this is a fact Mr. Speaker, that I have observed as I travel to my rural area, that Chinese farmers are abusing the land that they are leasing. I thank you.
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