Zimbabwe seeks middle ground for long-term settler...

Zimbabwe seeks middle ground for long-term settlers

Nyashadzashe Ndoro

Member of Parliament for Mabvuku-Tafara, Scott Sakupwanya, has raised concerns over the lack of compensation for long-term illegal settlers facing eviction, highlighting a potential contradiction with the government’s approach to white farmers.

The concerns come amid the evictions that were taking place across the country before the courts stopped the displacements.

While the government assures citizens that it will not displace residents who have lived on the land for over 20 years, a definitive plan for their future accommodation remains unclear.

Responding to Sakupwanya’s inquiry during Wednesday’s parliamentary Question and Answer session, Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi acknowledged the situation’s complexity. He emphasised President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s commitment to providing proper housing and expressed a preference for regularising the settlements instead of evictions.

Minister Ziyambi highlighted the example of resolving land disputes with white farmers. When legally obligated to return land, the government opted to find alternative plots for resettled individuals. This strategy, he suggests, could be applied to established informal settlements.

“The President is for people to have adequate accommodation where they have proper housing. The President is not for demolishing people’s houses. In fact, on the contrary, the President is saying even those in urban areas who do not have title deeds, despite having stayed in the same house for several years, and all they know is a card at the municipal offices, let us ensure that they have title deeds. It is true that if somebody has been occupying a land for over 20 years, technically we cannot go there without violating that particular individual’s rights and say we are demolishing. The law does not allow us to do that.

“What we are saying is that we will go area by area with all the stakeholders involved and interrogate whether it is feasible to do that or not. We have already started doing that. We were taken to court by some commercial farmers under the bi-lateral arrangement whereby we were not supposed to take their land. Our solution was that if the farm is still vacant, we can return it to that particular farmer, but it is impossible because of the settlers that are already there.

“The best solution is to look for an alternative farm so that we satisfy our legal requirements. That is what we are going to do even to our settlers. We do not have an appetite of making our own people homeless. That is not the policy of our President. His policy is to ensure that everyone has got a house that they call home and this is the Vision 2030 that the President is talking about. By the time we get to 2030, we will have housing for all,” the Minister said.

Ziyambi said the government position involves collaboration with stakeholders to assess the feasibility of regularising existing settlements. The approach, the Minister said, aims to balance the need to uphold legal obligations with the government’s objective of securing adequate housing for its citizens.