Mugabe government to honour land ownership rights

ROBERT MUGABE’S government has backtracked on its plan to nationalise all farmland, saying it will now honour ownership rights to land bought on the property market, according to a state newspaper report.

Citing a letter by foreign ministry official Joe Bimha to Zimbabwe embassies abroad, the Sunday Mail reported that the government would be nationalising only the land it had seized under its land reform programme.

“The correct position is that all land acquired under the current phase of the land reform programme now reposes to the state,” Bimha was quoted as saying. The report clarifies a June 8 statement by land reform minister John Nkomo that title deeds to all productive land were being abolished and replaced with 99-year state-issued leases.