by Rungano Dzikira
ZANU PF party has clarified Government’s Farm Mechanisation Programme undertaken between 2007 and 2008 saying that it was a necessary and powerful empowerment tool for farmers, and was never a loan scheme as alluded by detractors.
According to the revolutionary party, the initiative was necessary and effective in empowering, the previously disadvantaged black population since more than 350 000 households benefitted under the A1 Scheme and more than 19 000 households under the A2 Scheme; under the Land Redistribution Programme.
In a statement responding to claims made by the UK-based opposition activist, Dr Alex Magaisa, which alleged that millions of dollars in public funds had been looted by beneficiaries of the programme who failed to repay for the equipment to the central bank, the party observed that this was instead legit.
“It is this Revolutionary Land Reform Programme that provoked the imposition of sanctions against Zimbabwe and undermined and devastated its economy.
“In response to the deteriorating economic situation, the Government then adopted and implemented extraordinary interventions to address the prevailing situation in all sectors of the economy,” it said.
In the agricultural sector, Government went ahead to subsidize new farmers through different interventions. The Presidential Input Scheme – which intended to subsidise communal, old resettlement, and new A1 schemes; The Presidential Cotton Input Scheme - subsidized communal A1 farmers undertaking cotton production; The Farm Mechanisation programme - targeted A1 and A2 farmers, and the Command Agriculture which targeted A1, and A2 farmers.
“These interventions, were intended to develop capacity for all categories of farmers…and has been successful and kept the country afloat for the past 20 years, notwithstanding the sanctions and the general global isolation of the country.”
The party reiterated, “The Farm Mechanisation Programme was undertaken as an empowerment tool for the farmers, and was not a loan, but a subsidy.”
The party slated looting allegations by Dr Magaisa arguing that rubbishing the State interventions was a frontal brazen attack on the Land Redistribution Programme.
The party further stated that they had no apologies for the manner in which the programme had been carried out.
“ZANU PF has no apologies to make for the Revolutionary Land Redistribution Programme embarked upon from 2000, it makes no apologies for the Government intervention in the various sectors of the economy including the Farm Mechanisation Programme to empower its new farmers in order to render the Land Reform Programme successful.”
The party instead noted that Governments the world over subsidized their farmers in order to ensure improved food and raw materials production.
“This is a major policy in most countries including China, USA, Australia, Europe, Russia, India, etc. Zimbabwe should not be an exception more so in an evolving situation where the country had a new crop of farmers previously discriminated against.”
