Chinamasa blames land reform for Zimbabwe's problems

ZANU PF Secretary for Finance Patrick Chinamasa has blamed the land reform as the root cause of the problems bedevilling Zimbabwe.

In an interview the Sunday Mail Deputy Editor, Lovemore Ranga, Chinamasa said, "Everything goes back to the land reform. People don't understand how far reaching the land reform was in the history of not only our country but the world especially in the manner in which we undertook it. The consequences are dire."

The former Finance Minister said the people of Zimbabwe wanted to benefit from the land reform but were not willing to accept the consequences.

"They want the fruits of land reform but not want to bear the consequences. As you know, land reform completely disrupted agricultural production because the structural issue which was there was that it was in the hands of a few farmers.

"The majority of the population was not in the economy. This was prevalent in mining and all other sectors. So it was a structural anomaly that needed to be corrected. However, as it gets corrected production is the first casualty. So this happened in agriculture, manufacturing and mining."

Zimbabwe embarked on a chaotic land reform process in the turn of the millennium which saw the western powers imposing sanctions on the country.