Almot Maqolo, Staff Writer 
ZIMBABWE can emulate China’s land tenure system of giving value to rural land and use it to improve its own model, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube has said.
The development comes as land tenure committee chairperson Kuda Tagwirei and Lands minister Vangelis Haritatos have insisted that Harare’s agrarian reforms were “irreversible, and the current exercise was actually meant to protect resettled farmers from irregular evictions and the government was going to absorb all surveying costs for properties to be titled under the programme”.
“China demonstrates that value can be unlocked even where underlying rural land remains collectively owned. (Beijing)’s experience reinforces the importance of… clearly registering rights that may lawfully support operational transactions,” Ncube said, adding “secure and encourage landholders to believe that lawful rights will endure, can be inherited, used for other developmental needs, mechanisation and agro-processing infrastructure”.
“…Clearer and transferable rights reduce uncertainty and transaction costs. They facilitate succession, leasing, partnerships and joint ventures, improve land-use planning and enable under-utilised land to be matched with capital, technology and managerial capability. In this way, land becomes a platform for production, rural industrialisation, exports, job creation and intergenerational wealth, while remaining subject to the… national interest,” he told a high-level land tenure committee meeting in Harare last week.
While Zimbabwe could also draw lessons from Mozambique’s direito de uso e aproveitamento da terra (DUATs) system – which means right of land use and benefit – Ncube, Haritatos and their other cabinet colleagues Anxious Masuka, Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi and Local Government boss Daniel Garwe said “titling was a necessary tool and asset to move agriculture from subsistence farming to commercialisation, value addition and beneficiation”.
Even, though Tagwirei warned the same gathering that “surveying processes might delay a bit” due to financial constraints, he emphasised that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration was still “very much committed to assisting the 365 000-plus land reform beneficiaries, had approved affordable ownership-financing plans for special interest groups such as war veterans and an accurate cadastre as well as deeds registry programme would help eliminate double allocations, quicker boundary-disputes resolution and reduce information asymmetry”.
“Zimbabwean agricultural land – at an average six US cents per square metre – had been, for too long, a dead asset and yet titling can unlock nearly US$20 billion, which is presently not being accounted for in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP),” Tagwirei said before encouraging land reform beneficiaries to take “full advantage of the ongoing registration process and secure their title, as there was a waiting list of 200 000 people “.
While Ziyambi and Garwe reiterated that Zimbabweans – regardless of their socio-economic status – must respect the rule of law and not expect government to tolerate or sanitise their illegal acts such as land grabs, and creation of illegal settlements, the current exercise was aimed at strengthening and restoring order across the country as well as fine-tuning the decades-old land reform programme.
Crucially, the government was “no longer giving open-ended offer letters, but 12-month permits” to encourage farm productivity and eliminate speculative land holdings.
Meanwhile, Ncube has challenged the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) to raise its revenue collections and its tax-to-GDP ratio from the current 17 percent to 22 percent by 2030.
“Effective revenue collection and border management will continue to depend on a whole-of-government approach and modern, technology-driven systems,” he said at the revenue agency’s 25th anniversary celebrations yesterday.
Ncube’s calls come as Zimra has widened its revenue collection strategies by relooking at or scrutinising uncharted territories such as the real estate sector and thus embarking on a pilot raid on Harare’s Borrowdale Brooke enclosure.
And analysts say Harare has not only been itching to expand tax collections beyond the US$10 billion-plus target this year, but a good and stable revenue base is essential for national development, delivery of social services and even debt repayment.
Meanwhile, Zimra recognised Zimplats, Bitumen World, Econet, Delta and CBZ among the country’s top tax contributors as the tax authority marked its 25th anniversary.
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