Zimbabwe issues dollar bonds to pay ex-farmers for land grabs

Zimbabwe issued treasury bonds worth $308 million and made small cash payments to White farmers who were dispossessed of their property 25 years ago under a state-backed land reform program.

The payments are the first under a so-called "Global Compensation Deed" signed in 2020 between the state and the former farm owners in which Zimbabwe committed to paying $3.5 billion for improvements done on the farmland.

A Land Compensation Committee has approved compensation for 740 former farm owners, with the first 378 farmers paid 1% of the total compensation value of $311 million in late March as well as receiving Treasury bonds, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said.

Following the cash payment the balance is "being paid in US dollar denominated Treasury bonds with a 2% coupon and maturities of two to 10 years," Ncube said Wednesday in a statement. The bonds, issued last week, can be sold and held by other market players including pension funds, before their maturity date, he said.

The Compensation Steering Committee's Chairperson and former Commercial Farmer's Union President Andrew Pascoe confirmed receipt of the payments. The former farm owners received dollar payments on March 24, he added.

The payment is the latest attempt to resolve the decades-long dispute triggered by former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe encouraging veterans of the liberation war to evict farmers and their workers from their land in a bid to win support in a close-fought election in 2000. By 2002, at least seven White farmers had been killed alongside dozens of their workers, Human Rights Watch said.

That contributed to sanctions being imposed on Zimbabwean politicians by the US, UK and the European Union leading to the southern African nation's protracted fallout with the West.

Zimbabwe, also has a history of not paying its debts. It has been locked out of international capital markets since 1999 after it defaulted on debt from lenders including the World Bank, Paris Club and African Development Bank.

In February, Zimbabwe began paying compensation to five nations namely Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and the former Yugoslavia and to 56 foreign nationals who despite having their farms protected under bilateral agreements had them seized. The compensation is a crucial step demanded by foreign creditors as the southern African nation seeks to restructure its debt. Zimbabwe owes 57% of its $21 billion debt pile to external creditors.