Zimbabwe’s new president invited the white farmers back to the country and promised that they would be offered 99-year leases over their land, Times reported.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, the new president who unseated Mr Mugabe in November after a soft coup, has said that he wants white farmers back. Zimbabwe, an agriculture-dominated country, urgently needs people who are able to revive the former “Breadbasket of Africa”.
The country’s new agriculture minister, Perence Shiri, told the white farmers, many of whom struggled under the recently deposed Robert Mugabe, that they would be offered 99-year leases over their land. n other words, Zimbabwean government’s message to exiled farmers is clear. Come home.
White farmers in Zimbabwe have been thrown a lifeline by the country’s new government, offering hope to those who live in fear of losing their livelihoods and raising the prospect of a new era in the shattered country.
The leases would replace the five-year renewable leases introduced by Mugabe after the violent land reform of the 2000s which brought the agriculture-dominated economy of the former “Breadbasket of Africa” to its knees.
Zimbabwe is waiting for white farmers back to the country
Zimbabwe has a lot of capital resource dotted around the world, including Australia, that is why Basil Nyabadza from the Agricultural and Rural and Development Authority says Zimbabwean farmers in Australia should return to home soil and to help to revive the agriculture.
“We are saying, if you are Zimbabwean, there is now a real opportunity to come back home with your skills and be part of the building team,”
Nyabadza explained.
Now farmers who lost everything are being asked to take the latest announcement in good faith. For some ex-landholders, that is too much to ask, they have no intentions to return because have no trust in the Zimbabwean government, no previous, neither current one. Just a few of white farmers are prepared to give it a try.
Mr Nyabadza announced both public and private partnerships are the only way forward to restore trust.
“We are now in a new dispensation. And the challenge is now, we must rebuild our economy. In so doing, we need each other. So, we are reaching out,”
Mr Nyabadza said.
