Zimbabwean white farmers whose land was expropriated without compensation by the government at the turn of the Millenium say if they reject the new compensation deals, they may lose the little they have been getting.
In 2020, the government signed an agreement with the former farmers where it undertook to pay US$3.5 as compensation over a 20-year period for improvements that were done on the farms.
The government recently offered to settle the US$3.5 billion land compensation deal with white former farmers over 10 years instead of 20 years.
Since the signing of the original deal, the government has repeatedly missed repayment deadlines.
According to SABC News, the chairperson of the Southern African Agriculture Initiative, Theo De Jager said what they have been getting from the Zimbabwean government is not enough and they will lose the little they have been getting if they reject the deals. He said:
There is nothing to hide here, for the farmers, they want to put their case when this global compensation deed was signed one of the issues was a few hundred farmers destitute and we have nothing and they don’t know how they will afford their medical bills at the end of the month.
The Zimbabwean government gave us a few dollars each month but it’s not enough and we never know when they will pay us, and if we don’t accept their new deals, the government would stop paying us.
The legal representative of the Zimbabwean farmers, Willie Spies said they want fair compensation and will seek recourse at South African courts. Said Spies:
We decided to carry on with an edict claim against the SA government on behalf of the farmers we represent, in the first half of 2019.
We issued 56 summons against the SA government and President Cyril Ramaphosa for a …. claim for the damages suffered by Zimbabwean farmers as a result of the deprivation of their rights, the ConCourt is currently tasked with this matter.
The farmers argue that their land claim is worth more than US$10 billion.
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