Taxpayers’ funds will not be used to compensate white former commercial farmers for improvements made on farms, but the money will be sourced externally, President Mnangagwa has said.

The President, who was addressing ZANU PF Midlands Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) members in Gweru yesterday, also clarified recent visits by two groups of South African envoys.

He said the first group sent by President Cyril Ramaphosa was for “President-to-President briefings” while that country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) delegation had come for “party-to-party briefings” and were never meant to meet opposition groupings as has been peddled on various forums.

On the Global Compensation Deed Agreement, President Mnangagwa said the revolutionary party would never deviate from its ethos where land was the main reason for the protracted war that brought independence in 1980.

“Our colonisers took our land and we waged a war that culminated into independence and we took it back, and that will never change,” he said.
“We, however, have a few individuals who fail to understand or comprehend our Constitution, Section 295 of the Constitution.

We have a Lancaster House Constitution which we used until 2013, but we decided as a people that we need a home-grown Constitution and that Constitution remains the position.”
President Mnangagwa said the Lancaster House Constitution had a clear provision on compensation, one which would be done without using taxpayers’ money.

“The position is that as Zimbabweans we shall not pay compensation for land and that remains . . . we are saying no taxpayer’s money will be used to pay that compensation,” he said.-The Sunday News