guest column:Francis Mukora ON September 28 as I read the Telegraph, a Chinhoyi-based newspaper, I came across a story about Sekuru Dovaan Kaimah, who turned 100 years in June and lives in Makonde district since arriving from Mozambique in 1948. Despite having worked at more than five farms for more than 50 years, Sekuru Kaimah said he did not get any terminal benefits except for the National Social Security Authority pension, which he received for only two months after retirement. He is also unhappy that he did not benefit from the land redistribution programme. Sekuru Kaimah’s story, which personifies hundreds other former farm workers countrywide, was published exactly two months after the Zimbabwean government and white former commercial farm owners signed the Global Compensation Agreement which will see about 4 000 former farm owners receiving US$3,5 billion compensation “for improvements made on the land compulsorily acquired” during the land reform programme. In his speech at the agreement’s signing ceremony on July 29, 2020, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said “the assumption and expectation is that this agreement will bring closure and finality to the land question”. On August 4, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, who chairs the committee responsible for mobilising the US$3,5 billion, described the agreement as “a reflection of the second republic’s political commitment to the successful conclusion of the land redistribution process in a manner that restores the integrity and dignity of all the people of Zimbabwe who were affected by the land reform.” Suffice to note that Ncube’s assertion leaves a lot to be desired as one critical constituency, the former farm workers, are not catered for by the agreement. At the beginning of the land reform in 2000, at least 322 000 full-time workers were employed at commercial farms countrywide. The United Nations estimated that the land reform programme had displaced at least one million farm workers and their dependants by 2008. They lost jobs, livelihoods and properties. Others were injured and some even died in the violence that characterised the exercise. Despite the promulgation in 2002 of Statutory Instrument 6 of 2002, compelling farm owners to pay severance packages to their employees who lost jobs consequent to compulsory farm takeovers, the majority did not receive anything as surveys, including by the Ministry of Labour, showed that a meagre 23% had received any form of compensation by 2003. The main explanation and expectation was that farmers would pay them after receiving their own compensation. Surprisingly, the recently signed agreement is silent on the issue. On August 14, Zimpapers Television Network hosted a discussion to unpack the agreement, with Ncube, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative Georges Van Montfort and former farmers’ representative Harry Orphanides as panelists. During the discussion, I sent a question about compensation of former farm workers for their losses. Another listener also asked whether government and the UNDP a
