{{Zimbabwe has ceased grabbing foreign-owned farms protected by bilateral investment agreements after a group of 40 Dutch farmers won a lawsuit for the loss of their properties, the Lands minister said Thursday.}}<\/p>\n
Mr Herbert Murerwa said government has decided to steer clear of farms falling under the so-called Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) because previous ventures into those farmlands have proved costly.<\/p>\n
“All farms under BIPPA will not be acquired under the land reform programme. That’s the position we have taken for now,” the minister said.<\/p>\n
“This is in view of the on-going litigation in the ICSID (International Court for the Settlement of Investment Disputes).”<\/p>\n
The tribunal, which is a branch of the World Bank, in 2009 ruled in favour of the Dutch farmers who had sought compensation for land expropriated by Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
It ordered the government to pay the farmers 8.8 million euros ($11.5 million) in compensation and slapped a 10 percent interest for every six months from the date the farms were seized until full payment of the amounts.<\/p>\n
Minister Murerwa said the government owed the farmers $25 million following their victory at the Washington-based tribunal.<\/p>\n
The farms were covered under a deal compelling Zimbabwe to protect investments from countries that penned the pact.<\/p>\n
“Government will abide by the provision of the agreements and at the same time we do not want to increase our liability,” Mr Murerwa said.<\/p>\n
Countries covered by the investment protection agreement include Denmark, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Malaysia and Switzerland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Zimbabwe has ceased grabbing foreign-owned farms protected by bilateral investment agreements after a group of 40 Dutch farmers won a lawsuit for the loss of their properties, the Lands minister said Thursday.}} Mr Herbert Murerwa said government has decided to steer clear of farms falling under the so-called Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-4982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4982"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=4982"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=4982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}