Zimbabwe compensates foreign farmers for Mugabe-era losses

04 October 2024

The farmers to be compensated lost their farmlands during a reform programme by former President Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe compensates foreign farmers for Mugabe-era losses

The Zimbabwean government will this month pay an initial $20 million to foreign and local farmers who lost land during reforms under former leader Robert Mugabe at the turn of the century, the finance minister said on Friday.

The spending was allocated in the 2024 budget as part of a series of measures to restore the country's once-thriving farming sector and help launch a long promised economic revival.

Mugabe oversaw the seizure of highly productive farms in 2000. Most were owned by Zimbabwean white commercial farmers after colonialists forcibly took them from Blacks early in the 20th century.

Beneficiaries

But foreign white farmers and some Black Zimbabweans also lost property in the seizures a quarter of a century ago, many of them spontaneous and unorganised.

Those being compensated include foreign farmers from some European countries and 400 Zimbabweans, Mthuli Ncube said.

A separate and much larger $3.5 billion scheme for 4,000 white Zimbabwean farmers was announced in 2020, but the money has not been forthcoming owing to Zimbabwe's financial woes.

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