On 8th October, an unexpected cabinet announcement laid out plans for a completely new tenure regime in the land reform areas. This was to provide a secure form of tenure arrangement; not necessarily title but with an arrangement that was to be ‘bankable’, allowing for collateral to support investment. It was to be implemented across land reform areas, with war veterans and women prioritised. The registration and granting of tenure rights was in turn expected to allow for sale and purchase by ‘indigenous’ Zimbabweans.
Many questions raised
The announcement has caused a huge amount of debate, raised many questions and quite a lot of consternation. Given its provenance (from cabinet) and timing (just before a major party gathering) it has been seen as politically significant, but the details remain very opaque. Many asked, if not freehold title, what would the secure tenure arrangement entail? Would it really be bankable given the objections that the bankers had made about even the revised 99-year lease? Would all prior offer letters, permits and leases become null and void, and would this registration and allocation process have to start from scratch, so affecting all the informal and semi-formal rental, lease and purchase agreements that have been put in place over the last decades? Would purchase be allowed for only a single farm, or many? Should the proposal be applied to all land reform land, or only in practice A2 land? Who was to be defined as ‘indigenous’, does this include white Zimbabweans? How would the process guard against proxies acting on behalf of others, including investors from South Africa and beyond? And so on.
Beyond the technical questions of how this might even work, there were other political questions raised about the process and its timing. Given the high profile of this announcement and its timing before a ZANU-PF congress and in advance of further rounds of AfDB-led debt negotiations, who was it being aimed at? Was it disgruntled war veterans who have been criticising the party elite? Was it the international donors who wanted to see progress on the ‘land pillar’ in advance of further debt negotiations, allowing a land market to increase efficiency and productivity alongside investment? Was this a deal, aimed at further accumulation by the elite beneficiaries of land reform in the A2 farms, allowing them to capitalise on the assets that they had been granted, and make more money? Was it an attempt to reduce pressure on the national fiscus given the government is broke, allowing private funds to be mobilised for investment in farming? Or was it some combination of the above?
The various discussions, public and private, that took place in the immediate aftermath of the announcements, showed some interesting reactions. Vocal supporters of the opposition (at least in the past) argued that this was just another example of a corrupt political elite cashing in on the land reform. Following the (long disproved but still persistent) narrative that post-2000 land reform only benefited ZANU-PF ‘cronies’, this latest move was seen as a way of improving their position, without having invested anything at least in the acquisition of land. Even if not linked to ZANU-PF patronage, many questioned the idea of just giving a national asset (land) that had been fought for during the liberation war to a select group of individuals for free and allowing them to cash it in through land sales.
A new land tenure regime or a better land administration system?
I must say that I remain sceptical of the proposal. In the past – together with Sam Moyo and others and following the work of Mandi Rukuni on President Mugabe’s Land Tenure Commission of the early 1990s – I have argued for the retention of a multiform tenure system, with different approaches suited to the context. I have argued against creating a completely free land market because of the risks of land concentration and elite capture, a theme picked up by Freedom Mazwi and George Mudimu in a recent Agrarian South journal blog. In line with others, I have also made the case that offer letters, permits and leases – the existing mechanisms – could easily provide the basis for secure tenure if effectively implemented, with records updated. ‘Freehold title‘ for some strange reason is seen as the gold standard in Zimbabwe (by former farmers and war vets alike), but has so many flaws, not least the implications for equity and justice.
I have argued in particular that what is (still) absent is an effective, transparent and functioning land administration system that provides for low-cost registration, regular audit and the collection of land tax and other revenues. Revised forms of land leases in particular I believe offer the potential for collateral security to guarantee bank loans, and all existing forms of recognised tenure can and should guard against land grabbing and speculation by outsiders if properly recognised. The growth of informal land markets and the de facto existence of land sales/purchases on quite a large and growing scale, alongside increasing numbers of cases of ‘land grabs’ for commercial agriculture, mining and others uses especially in the communal areas, makes this even more imperative.
Offering a bankable lease that can be exchanged through sales/purchases for A2 farms may be part of this solution if a cheap registration and audit system can be devised, allowing underutilised land to be brought into production. My long-held view is that such A2 farmers should pay at least for the ‘improvements’ on their land through a land tax, and so contribute to the compensation funds offered to former owners, and so offering leases for such land allocated by the state should not be ‘free’.
By contrast, the possibility of implementing the current cabinet proposal in A1 areas is slim. This land should in my view remain state land, but with provisions for rental/leasing as exists in the informal system, and discussed in the last blog. This is the same for communal lands, which are acknowledged to be out of the scope of the proposal. In the A1 areas, as discussed in the previous blogs in this series, a system of land authority has emerged that is quite similar to the communal areas. There is a more dynamic land market because of there being more land to exchange, and the value of it for commercial investment, but trying to box this incredible complexity and the multiple informal systems at play into a simple farm-based registration and tenure recognition process allowing for commercial sales seems incredibly unwise. As I have argued before, there are other ways of providing agricultural finance in these areas, with different collateral loan arrangements backed by the state, and by retaining state ownership even if individual usufruct, these national assets would not be up for sale.
While land registration systems are certainly needed, these need not be incredibly complex or costly and should not prevent the informal systems that have been evolving. Land markets can provide for a healthy exchange of land through rental and leasing systems, even purchase, and help farmers make use of their land more effectively, as the discussion of ‘new entrants’ in the previous two blogs have shown. The trouble is that nearly 25 years after land reform there remains confusion over tenure rights. As a Lands officer explained, “We can’t keep up. We have no transport in the district, so we have not been able to issue final A1 permits except in very few places. They are nearly all temporary, most with different names. There are now so many disputes, so many different ‘offer letters’. When we issue final permits, we only select those few A1 schemes without disputes, ones that have respected boundaries and carrying capacities”. Commenting on ‘illegals’, he went on “It’s a complicated web. Illegal settlers are too many in the resettlement areas. They do what they want. They know that Lands officers do not visit farms regularly, and if they do pass through the farms, it will take another two years or so before they return to the farm. So, they are doing whatever they want. And when you are trying to evict those illegal settlers, politicians tells us to leave them because they voted for them”.
The frustration of those charged with addressing land issues across the country is palpable. But will a brand-new tenure system make things better or worse? Most people think the latter. In the words of one local official: “if in the A1 areas, it will be chaos, real chaos”. Instead, what is needed more than anything is a low-cost, transparent and efficient land administration system that can keep on top of transfers, inheritance bequests and other changes of use, while limiting the operations of ‘land barons’ and others. Currently the system is not keeping up. As another official commented, “Land seekers are being defrauded by scammers. People are buying land from land barons. These land barons are better-informed than us in terms of what is happening on the farms. They know where spaces are. They are more networked than us. Some land barons have even set up offices in towns. They print very nice offer letters. If you compare offer letters from the Ministry of Lands and the ones that they print, you would think that the land barons’ offer letters are genuine and ours are fake!”
Suggesting a totally new system will I fear cause even more delays and confusion. Instead of changing tenure regime, a focus on boosting the capacity for basic land administration is therefore essential, and long overdue.
Watch this space: time for some more deliberation
Let’s see how this debate unfolds. The African experience of formalising land tenure systems through the offering of title (of some equivalent) has not been positive. The Rwanda experience, often promoted by donors and others, does not always stand up to the hype, as discussed in an earlier blog. The post-Independence experience of Kenya has not been positive, as a process of land concentration ensued following titling programmes, with many becoming disenfranchised, with major political and economic consequences. The Zimbabwe Land Commission has been deliberating on the future of land tenure and seeking expert advice.
Before rushing into a new set of tenure arrangements based on a vague, politically-driven announcement, more reflection and deliberation on what makes sense in Zimbabwe is urgently needed. Let’s hope that the technical implementation committee has the opportunity to come up with a workable approach. Suggesting a totally new system will I fear cause even more delays and confusion. Instead of changing tenure regime, a focus on boosting the capacity for basic land administration is therefore essential, and long overdue. The final blog in this series will be a reprise of a blog from 2017, which laid out some of the key issues.
This blog is the third in this series and was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland
Post published in: Agriculture