Former MDC Alliance Treasurer and MDC T official Tapiwa Mashakada while speaking to the state media yesterday said the opposition has always been in support of compensating commercial farmers who lost their properties during the early 2000s Land Reform program, The Herald reports.
Mashakada fought in the government’s corner in denying that the $3.5 Billion Global Compensation Deed was in a way a reversal of the controversial Land Reform Program. Said Mashakada:
Is this a reversal of the Land Reform Programme? The answer is an emphatic No. The principle of compensation is what both the MDC, civil society, white farmers, the EU and America have been calling for since 2000. In fact, in all our manifestos, we as the opposition have been calling for compensation in order to bring a closure to the land question. By compensating white farmers, Zanu PF has simply done what was expected by everybody. In my view, the Land Reform Programme is now irreversible.
The 2013 Constitution is very clear on the irreversibility of the Land Reform Programme. It is therefore cheap politicking to suggest that the Government is now reversing the land reform programme.
Meanwhile, the Minister Of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting services Monica Mtsvangwa said no one is going to lose their farm because of the compensation deed, there will be a few relocations but no land reform beneficiary will lose their farm.
More: The Herald