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‘Zimbabwe Must Present Comprehensive Plan To Compensate White Farmers’-EU
MY late father-in-law never tired of seeking to persuade me that the true measure of the success or failure of any given nation is never the successes of its well-to-do citizens but how that nation makes provision for and treats what he used to call “omhlaba usehlule“. He always argued that heartless and failed nations are measured by the desperate faces of and plight of its under-privileged, vulnerable, the elderly, the unemployed and disabled. How right he was!
A country like Zimbabwe which is wholly unable to effect a social security system that allows those of its citizens who fall below the survival radar to live in dignity and decency cushioned from the pangs of daily hunger and homelessness passes for a heartless nation. Developed countries like Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom may pass off as ‘nanny states’ to anxious libertarians, but it is only fair that a small portion of profits accumulated from capitalist adventures be set aside for the welfare of especially those who spent their adult lives contributing to corporate growth.
I write this having encountered numerous complaints from Zimbabwean citizens subjected to the inadequacies of a perforated social safety system. In the early 1980s, the British music band UB40 received a lot of airplay. It turned out that their subculture resonated with millions of unemployed British citizens whose private lives were sustained with social security money. To an outsider, it is shocking that an unemployed British man is more comfortable than an underpaid Zimbabwean teacher!
Nordic countries are also notorious for high taxes; and those in the know insist the monies are used to cushion vulnerable citizens of the groups I mentioned above. Therefore, if, as Zanu PF claims, Zimbabwe is one of the richest countries in Africa, how is it that its pensioners, the unemployed, the sick, the elderly, the injured – have been reduced to paupers? More so, with such a ‘well-funded’ institution called National Social Security Authority (NSSA) administering the social safety net. Where are we going wrong?
On its website, NSSA boldly states that it is there “to protect an individual in life situations or conditions in which his/her livelihood and well being may be threatened, such as those engendered by sickness, workplace injuries, unemployment, invalidity, old age, retirement and death.” Noble indeed, only that the lives of most of the I meet have degenerated ten-fold downwards ever since they retired from work. I could not even venture and talk about the plight of the unemployed, all six million of them!
THE European Union has put Zimbabwe’s controversial land issue on the agenda of the 2015 annual meeting of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) taking place in Lima, Peru, next week.
The development creates a new headache for finance minister Patrick Chinamasa who is already under attack from hawks in government and the ruling Zanu PF party over his pro-IMF policies.
Zimbabwe owes foreign creditors about $7 billion and is in desperate need for new funding to revive its faltering economy.
Creditors have told the country to clear first clear $1.8 billion in arrears to the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank before financiers can resume lending to the country.
Chinamasa will present a strategy for clearing the arrears at the Lima meetings.
Although details of his plans have not been made public, the IMF’s Zimbabwe representative described what the minister would present was a “sensible strategy”.
But EU ambassador to Zimbabwe, Philippe Van Damme, has said Zimbabwe should go to Lima with a comprehensive plan to compensate white farmers ousted under the government’s often violent and chaotic land reforms in the past 15 years.
The envoy said this in a speech read on his behalf last Friday Thomas Opperer, Head of the Agriculture and Food Security Section at the EU Delegation in Harare. He was speaking at the unveiling of an agriculture support fund by the EU.
“The Constitution is also very clear, stipulating in its section 72(3)(a) that all improvements effected have to be compensated, as also detailed as per the Land Acquisition Act and acknowledged in the ‘Strategies for Clearing External Debt Arrears and the Supportive Economic Reform Agenda’ that the government will present to the international community in Lima on 8 October ,”said the EU ambassador.
“In this regard, it is important to achieve a consensus based compensation mechanism that is workable and acceptable to all concerned, in line with the existing guidelines and procedures.
“Again, the EU does strongly emphasize the importance of carrying out this exercise in an inclusive manner, where all parties concerned (including the various farmers unions) are not only consulted but can contribute to reach a consensus about the key criteria and mechanism established.”
Chinamasa recently told the international community that Harare is committed to compensating the dispossessed farmers but “we have no money”.
source-newzimbabwe
srr more at www.newzimbabwevision.com
photo-EU ambassador to Zimbabwe-Philippe Van Damme