Mliswa threatens to blow the whistle on multiple farm owners in Mashonaland West

Temba Mliswa, who was expelled from the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and lost his Hurungwe seat but is now back in Parliament as an independent member for Norton, says he will expose all the multiple farm owners in Mashonaland West because he has their names.

“I have a record of people who have farms which are registered in the names of their grand children,” he told Parliament during his contribution to the Land Commission Bill.  “I was the vice chairman of the Land Committee as the provincial chairman of the ruling party so, I have the data and I will submit it to the Land Commission.”

Mliswa said there was a lot of corruption in the issuing of land especially within ZANU-PF. The Commission should therefore invite people first to gather information about who owned what because they had the information.

He, however, disagreed with those who wanted farm sizes to be reduced saying the size of the farm should depend on what it was being used for.

“I have 1 000 cattle. So I think that the Land Commission should give more land to people who have cattle because one cow needs 4 hectares. So with my 1 000 cattle, it means I need 4 000 hectares. This means that the Land Commission should also look into that and review especially those who are into cattle farming that they should be given more land,” he said.

Full contribution

*HON. MLISWA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker.  I would like to contribute much to the Bill. The issue of land is very important.  Firstly, this Commission is going to make sure that land will not be attributed to ZANU PF but to the people of Zimbabwe. It is very important that the Government should bestow more power to independent people who have a lot to do with Zimbabwe so that when they are talking about land, they should not include politics.  The people who fought for this land did not fight it for ZANU PF party only but for the people of Zimbabwe.

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