MASVINGO Vice President John Nkomo Speaking at a Zanu (PF) meeting here, Nkomo said: “We are not going to sit back and watch enemies of development in the country. Those who are refusing to be resettled elsewhere are against development so we will deal with them, any way that is why we have soldiers and police we will order them to go and remove them.
He said Rautenbach’s venture is set to install a $5 billion ethanol plant at the ranch and venture into massive sugar cane production.
Rautenbach has already started developing Nuanetsi with crocodile project at the farm that boasts over 70 000 crocodiles and 40 000 eggs set to hatch. The crocodile project when it reaches its full potential will have 600 000 crocodiles and will become one of the biggest such projects in the world.
The settlers, most of them war veterans, invaded the spacious ranch at the height of President Robert Mugabes chaotic land reform programme and had been refusing to vacate the land after Rautenbach clinched a deal with Zanu (PF) and the Zimbabwe Development Trust (ZDT) that was formed by the late vice president Joshua Nkomo and his Zapu party in the 80s.
Meanwhile former villagers resettled on a former white-owned citrus estate near Beitbridge are said to have destroyed more than 300 000 orange trees since moving onto the estate in 2000.
The black villagers apparently uprooted the trees to grow cereals such as maize and sorghum that they need for household consumption and in some cases for sale to the governments Grain Marketing Board.
My Estate used to produce orange juice concentrate for both local and foreign markets. When the estate was taken over from me in July 2003 it had over 500 000 trees of newly planted orange trees but right now the trees have either been burnt or uprooted, said Morris Hebert, the former owner of the estate who since relocated to Bulawayo.
Post published in: News