'Land permits useless pieces of paper'

Prominent economist and political writer Mr Vince Musewe has described the A1 land permits recently launched by President Robert Mugabe as useless pieces of paper that hold no value to land ownership.

Speaking in a ZBC TV current affairs programme Melting Pot hosted by Oscar Pambuka on Wednesday night, Musewe said that there is nothing to celebrate about on the permits issued as they do not give ownership title to the occupants of the land which was given to them under the government land redistribution exercise.

According to Musewe the permits only give the occupants an access to the land and not any direct ownership of the land.

"These permits are just useless pieces of paper that do not give occupants of the land any ownership of the land but just access to use the land," said Musewe inciting fury from core panellist Edward Tome.

Tome a well known writer and defender of Zanu-PF history and policies clearly showed his rage at Musewe's criticism of the government's latest move on land redistribution saying that Musewe was lying to the nation about the government land policy. Tome claimed that the Land Permits were a genuine land ownership document in the status of land title deeds.

Tome in his angry response actually started by criticising the title deeds that land owners have always been getting describing them as colonial documents that gave land ownership to the queen of England.

"The title deeds you are talking about are colonial documents that made the land of our ancestors belong to the queen of England," he said.

"We are in fact in the process of getting rid of these colonial title deeds and produce our own Zimbabwean title deeds, whether it will be this year in 2014 or next year in 2015 but we will come up with our own title deeds that will give us our land," added Tome.

In response Musewe did not mince his words in describing the land permits as another of ZANU PF bundles which is being used to just blind land occupants to believe that they own land. Contrary to Tome's assertions who claimed that the permits will allow the occupants to access funding financing from banks and financial house, Musewe discredited the permits claiming that no serious financial institution will lend money on the strength of the permits.

"This paper will never hold water in any serious financial institution for land occupants to get loans on their strength. This is just another of Zanu-PF's gimmicks to make land occupants believe that they have claim to the land," he said forcing the moderator Pambuka to ask him to leave Zanu-PF out of the discussions.

"We have no one from Zanu-PF to answer to those allegations," fumed Pambuka.

"The Zanu-PF spokesperson is not here to answer to that let's stick to the issue at hand," he added immediately attracting Tome to come in and declare his die hard affiliation to Zanu-PF.

"I am here from Zanu-PF and I have every right to come in and defend my leaders," fumed Tome. "I can not sit here and allow this guy to blast our leaders and mislead the nation like this."

Musewe described the land distribution exercise initiated by government in the year 2000 as chaotic and causing food insecurity in the country.

"The chaotic land distribution is the cause for all the food insecurity in the country forcing us to now import maize from Zambia and Malawi," said Musewe forcing for more fury from Tome.

"What chaos are you talking about? Our farmers are producing lots of tobacco and maize for the country so where is the chaos in that?"

President Robert Mugabe launched the new land permits in Chinhoyi last week assuring land occupants of perpetual ownership of the land they were given provided the land occupants put the land to productive use.

"Government has allocated land to you so that you improve your lives through agriculture production," Mugabe said.

"Land must be fully utilised for the production of food, not only for home consumption, but for national food security."

In his address to 79 farmers who received the permits, President Mugabe implored Zimbabweans to bear in mind the long and difficult struggle which was fought by Zimbabweans to get back their land and never to undermine the land reform programme.

President Mugabe warned farmers against undermining the land reform through sub letting their farms.

Said Mugabe: "Others have sub-leased the land or surrendered it to individuals for lease rentals. What annoys us even more is where our indigenous farmers sub-lease to the very same farmers we took our heritage from yesterday."

The President was not clear cut clear on the value and/or relationship of the land permits to the land title deeds. The new permits issued immediately took away the land redistribution exercise from the District Administrators under the Minister of Local Government to the Minister of Lands and Resettlement.