Rautenbach’s links to Zanu PF reap rewards for him, and misery for 25 families on Nuanetsi Ranch
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We recently received a copy of a letter written and signed by Titus Maluleke, clearly indicating his whole-hearted support for Billy Rautenbach’s biodiesel project to be carried out on Nuanetsi Ranch (click on images above to enlarge). The person who sent us the letter told us that the Governor Maluleke had his own [stolen] farm’s irrigation system completely overhauled by Billy Rautenbach in exchange for his unwavering support for Rautenbach’s biodiesel project.
It worked.
Rautenbach is miraculously exempt from all the vilification every other white Zimbabwean commercial farmer has been subjected to. Compare, for example, the intimidation and misery inflicted on Mount Carmel Farm to the attention Rautenbach receives. Incredible really, when you think that Rautenbach is planning a project that will not grow food for the hungry Zimbabwean population.
Even more remarkable is the fact that the history of Nuanetsi Ranch represents a reverse in Zanu PF logic. The re-settlement of people here under Zanu PF’s controversial and violent land redistribution policy caused friction in 2007, as reported in ZimOnline:
“Nuanetsi ranch is owned by DTZ, a black-owned company and if we designate that land, who are we empowering? We cannot take land from a black man and give it to another black man.
“If there is anyone trying to do something there tell him he is wasting his time because that land was bought and cannot just be given to people without any justification,” said Msika.
According to the Governor in those days, they needed to use such a large stretch of land to grow crops:
“It is true that we wanted to designate the Nuanetsi ranch to resettle people there for the government to grow crops under the Masvingo food initiative.
So Rautenbach’s achievement, a white man securing the support of Zanu PF to evict 25 black re-settled families so he can utilise a very large farm (when other white farmers around the country are vilified) - to grow biodiesel – has a smelly, albeit familiar, whiff of corruption about it. I suppose the 25 families who will be forced to leave Nuanetsi Ranch are just ‘collateral damage’ in a ruthless business deal.
What a mess.
This sorry affair only serves to illustrate that what counts in the eyes of Zanu PF is not the hungry people of our country, and nor the landless majority they continuously claim to represent. It shatters any illusion of altruistic motives on the part of Zanu PF and distills it down to the real Zanu PF essentials: power, control and money. Basically, what Zimbabweans always knew anyway and the reasons why Zanu PF was thrashed in the polls last year.
What really matters more than anything to Zanu PF is the promise of big bucks heralded by the tooting of a gravy train fast-approaching – driven by a white man in this case, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to bother the usually very racist Zanu PF party so much…? Perhaps they haven’t noticed the pigment in Rautenbach’s skin, or perhaps Rautenbach did a very good job of blinding them by putting dollar signs in their eyes.
Background and more on this story via The Zimbabwe Standard – my emphasis added:
Government wants to evict 25 families from Nuanetsi Ranch to make way for Zanu PF-aligned businessman Billy Rautenbach’s biodiesel project. Rautenbach, who is a close associate of President Robert Mugabe and Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, has effectively taken over the ranch in the Lowveld through his Zimbabwe Bio-Energy (Pvt) Ltd.
The company went into a joint partnership with the Development Trust of Zimbabwe (DTZ), an organisation founded by the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo soon after Independence.
According to a letter from Masvingo governor Titus Maluleke to Lands and Resettlement Minister, Herbert Murerwa, the provincial lands committee on September 9 resolved to remove the farmers “as a matter of urgency”.
“It was agreed that the development coming to Nuanetsi as implemented by the investor, must not be disturbed under any circumstances,” Maluleke said in his letter seen by The Standard.
“The grazers who were occupying the part of the development area which the investor intends to develop into a conservancy must move out immediately to allow the investor to start on the investment programme.”
Maluleke also ordered the eviction of settlers at the Chingwizi area which he said had been set aside for sugar cane production.
“Equally, the settlers that are in the Chingwizi area which is earmarked for cane development must also be moved to the agreed areas for resettlement north of Tokwe River,” he said.
He said those displaced by the project and the construction of Tokwe/Mukorsi Dam would be resettled elsewhere in the province.
But the farmers are resisting the relocation. The 25 families at Nuanetsi Ranch say they risk losing their cattle numbering more than 12 000.
The farmers have also written to Murerwa asking him to block the impending relocation.
“As farmers, our throughput into the beef industry has been substantial. . .The bulk of the meat coming through registered slaughter houses has been coming from our production.
“. . . Regrettably, the future of these farmers is now bleak as we have been given 24-hour notices to vacate Nuanetsi Ranch. Twelve thousand plus breeding stock is now faced with imminent decimation,” reads the letter from the farmers.
They claimed that they were being forced into an area that was unsuitable for cattle ranching.
Murerwa is yet to respond to both letters and efforts to get a comment from the minister and Maluleke were fruitless.
Rautenbach wants to grow sugar cane on 100 000 hectares of land in the ranch for ethanol production.
Other ventures in the pipeline include a giant crocodile-breeding project and cattle ranching.
The $1 billion investment project will displace more than 1 000 families already settled in the Nuanetsi Ranch.
