New farmers to pay rent to compensate white farmers

Beneficiaries of Zimbabwe’s land reform programme will now have to pay rent to compensate the white farmers who were dispossessed of the land. Those who default risk losing the land. Lands Minister Douglas Mombeshora said the new farmers will pay$3 per hectare a year and a unit tax of $2 a hectare a year. “Cabinet last week approved payment of a land rental by all the beneficiaries of the land reform programme and the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement will not only collect the land rental from A1 and A2 farmers, but the ministry will also be responsible for collecting unit tax,’’ Mombeshora was quoted by The Herald as saying. “Collection of the land rental will start this year, definitely, and we are currently busy working on the mechanisms of how the money will be collected.”

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