BEN Freeth, the former Chegutu commercial farmer and now global land rights activist, has described the government’s newly-issued title deeds as “unbankable” and “worthless”.
The leader of the Sadc Tribunal Rights Watch expressed concern over government’s plans to issue title deeds for farms grabbed in the chaotic land reform programme at the turn of the century.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa last year launched a new policy allowing beneficiaries of the land reform programme to sell and be able to borrow from banks using the land as collateral.
Some farmers, including Mnangagwa have already received title deeds to the farms they are occupying.
However, Freeth said the farms had legally issued title deeds owned by former white commercial farmers, smallholders and members of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army.
“These title deed owners have not been compensated for their land, despite having final and binding court judgments which confirm that such original title deeds are still bona fide,” he said.
Freeth said the title deeds given to Mnangagwa and his cronies flew in the face of international law and the Sadc Treaty of 1992.
“The final and binding judgment of the Sadc Tribunal in the Campbell case, will render these new ‘title deeds’ unbankable and, in the final analysis, worthless unless there is first a full and fair settlement with the owners of the original title deeds.
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“In 2008, the tribunal found for a group of Zimbabwean farmers on the basis that they were deprived of their land without the right of access to the courts and the right to a fair hearing, both of which are essential human rights.
“In this way, the tribunal held that the Zimbabwe government breached the provisions of the Sadc Treaty: Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd and Others v Republic of Zimbabwe (November 28, 2008).”
Freeth added: “As is the case with the various and numerous attempts to issue new currencies in the Zimbabwean economy — there have been six attempts in 15 years to replace the US dollar as the primary currency — these new ‘title deeds’ will become worthless.
“We fully support any initiative to issue bona fide title deeds on farms that have been authentically bought by the Zimbabwe government and in communal areas where Zimbabweans have never enjoyed the benefits that freehold title deeds accrue to their owners.”
He applauded the Rwandese government for issuing freehold title deeds to its citizens.
“We are convinced that this, along with the firm establishment of the rule of law, is the fundamental game changer which will allow Africa to overcome poverty.
“The current move by the Zimbabwe government to issue what has been described by some as ‘counterfeit title’ will only create more confusion and stagnation in the agricultural economy and in Zimbabwe generally,” he said.
Freeth said government needed to return to the rule of law, re-establish justice system and obey final and binding judgments such as the Campbell judgment of Sadc Tribunal.
Meanwhile, Freeth, in a presentation made in the United Kingdom recently, said, unlike in the West, many places did not have title deeds at all in Africa.
“Rwanda has undertaken this incredibly powerful transformation, but Zimbabwe has gone the other way. They have taken titles away where title deeds had been in place and the country had been developed on the back of title deeds.
“And so what I would love to see is this type of title deed and a just system being established in Zimbabwe. And from perhaps 10 000 title deeds being cancelled, a million title deeds can be established within Zimbabwe,” he said.
The former farm owners on November 28, 2023, embarked on a challenging expedition spanning nearly 800km.
Freeth and his father-in-law Mike Campbell launched a spirited campaign against the land reform programme taking the case to the Sadc Tribunal which ruled in their favour.
However, the decision in favour of Freeth and Campbell led to the demise of the Tribunal after it was disbanded following a campaign by Zimbabwean authorities under the late former President Robert Mugabe.
Anxious Masuka, Lands and Agriculture minister, was not answering his phone yesterday.
A senior government official, however, dismissed Freeth’s statement saying the former farm owner seized the land without compensating locals.
