Big corporates are now competing with locals. It is locals that were keeping those irrigation schemes running but Government decides to partner with Trek. You are pushing the same locals away from that piece of land. What percentage of local investment is there? What piece of that cake are locals getting? Minister, if we do not watch over this, if this Commission is not allowed, a lot of corporates will do backward integration. I will not be surprised if next week I am told that Choppies are going into agriculture, I will not be surprised. So, this Commission must be empowered to protect our people on the ground. Finally Hon. Speaker, let me apply my mind to the question of audits, audits must be sincere. If this Commission is going to carry out audits, they must be sincere, instead of telling us who owns farm so and so and farm so and so, they must go deeper than that. We must be told what happened to the functional farms that people were allocated.
A lot of people were given functional farms but for want of money, they have gone on asset stripping sprees. There has been a lot of vandalism; there has been a lot of theft of equipment. If you go to Mbare, you can buy agricultural pipes that have been ripped off functional farms. Still on that, Minister, that Commission must look into the sizes of land. In Matabeleland South for instance, I have in mind whites run farm, it is a 2000 hectares farm but 20 families have been placed there. This used to be a highly productive ranch and dairy farm but how do you return it to its former levels of productivity if you have parceled it into small pieces of land? Those are dry patches of land. I thank you.
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