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Speaking after a meeting in Chinhoyi last Friday to discuss allegations of land leasing, Mashonaland West Governor and Resident Minister Faber Chidarikire said such acts were in direct contravention of a clause in offer letters stating that farmers should neither lease nor sub-contract land.

Yesterday, Zanu-PF national chairman, Cde Simon Khaya Moyo, attacked those beneficiaries of the land reform programme leasing out land to white former commercial farmers — labelling them saboteurs bent on compromising the Government’s empowerment efforts.

Said Governor Chidarikire: “The policy is very clear and we shall look at the cases one-by-one after which we will repossess the land depending on the reports that will be compiled by the team that will be on the ground.

“There was no defence of any kind from the farmers who were in the meeting. Nobody could say there is no leasing of land so we are only waiting for the findings from my team before we take action against the offenders.”

Some of the farmers said to be involved in the leasing of farms had entered pacts with white farmers in which they would get as little as three percent of the revenue generated while others were said to be getting between seven and 10 percent.

Some of the indigenous farmers bought land before the agrarian reforms and are also said to be leasing it.

“From the look of things, the leasing of land could have been happening for a long time and we understand that some have even leased their farms for as much as 15 years while some of the farmers confessed that they were in the last stages of their contracts.

“We are not against the idea of farmers getting contracted by genuine and reputable contractors who are concerned with their welfare, but what is happening in Huru-ngwe is not what we expect as Government and we will not allow that to go on,” Gover-nor Chidarikire said.-The Herald