Injustice Is Worse Than COVID-19


Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.

Scheduling A Meeting When You Have Nothing To Say

“First there was his self-pity — everything was someone else’s fault — and then there was his self-will — no one must oppose him on anything at any time ever.”

I just finished reading Antonia Fraser’s 1994 book, The Wives of Henry VIII, and I found that description of King Henry VIII — he of the six wives, two beheaded, and the English Reformation) on page 336. I just had to share it with you.

But that’s an aside showing how our zeitgeist infects even my recreational reading. (It may also show more than you care to know about my idea of recreational reading, but I suppose that’s another story, too.)

The substance of this post is about the cadence of meetings.

Cadence is a communications concept. If a group is working on a project, the group should meet frequently to make sure the group maintains its momentum. If a group does general oversight — the board of directors — then the group should meet less frequently.

The desire to set a cadence means, I fear, that people frequently set meetings for no reason at all.

“The appropriate cadence for this team to meet is once per month. That’s about enough for the nature of the work that the group performs.”

What happens?

“Oh, my God! The next meeting in the cycle is set for this Wednesday! We had forgotten about that. We don’t have an agenda. Can anybody gin up a few speakers to talk about something that’s arguably relevant to the group so that we fill the time?”

That conversation is routine. You hear it before many, many meetings.  And it’s an admission of defeat: “We don’t really have anything to talk about, but we have to gin up irrelevant crap to fill the time.”

At the end of the meeting, of course, everyone will praise the meeting: “Great meeting! Good speakers! Glad we did it!” Praising the meeting is no skin off the attendees’ teeth, and it’s better for your career to praise meetings than to criticize them (or to say that the meetings were entirely unnecessary). But don’t ignore the truth, despite what people say: People (or at least the people you’d like to retain) couldn’t have helped noticing that there was no reason at all to hold the meeting, no one learned anything of importance, and everyone just lost an hour out of their day.

I’m not opposed to all meetings.

Sometimes you meet because a project demands that people discuss what’s happening. That’s an extraordinarily good reason for a meeting.

I don’t mind quarterly oversight meetings. If all the group is doing is oversight, then surely some things that require oversight have occurred in the prior three months.

Sometimes scheduling meetings regularly serves a purpose, even when the participants really have nothing to discuss: “We have 1,000 illegal contracts!  We’d better get them corrected pronto. We must assign someone to be responsible for this task, and we must then schedule weekly meetings between (1) the person responsible for the task and (2) a very important person in the firm, at which we’ll discuss the progress being made on the task.” Those meetings serve a purpose: The person doing the task understands that he’s under the gun and, more importantly, he understands that God is watching him. “God is watching” meetings serve a purpose, even if the job could be accomplished without them.

In a world when we’re allowed to meet in person, meetings can improve collegiality, even if the agenda is light.

But please consider canceling meetings when you realize that you have a meeting scheduled for next week and nothing to communicate. Canceling the meeting is an entirely legitimate alternative to burdening your audience with drivel because you have nothing to say.


Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

Furloughed Biglaw Associate Charged In New York Molotov Cocktail Attack

Although states have slowly but surely started to reopen in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, the nation has been in a state of unrest following the officer-involved killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, with mass protests breaking out across the country in response to police brutality and racism. Unfortunately, some of these peaceful gatherings have turned into riot situations, with looting and other acts of aggression taking the place of meaningful marches across America. One of those who stands accused of taking part in these violent crimes is a Biglaw associate, or we should say a possibly former Biglaw associate — one who was furloughed earlier this spring thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Colinford Mattis, 32, stands accused of damaging New York City Police Department vehicles with Molotov cocktails during a Brooklyn protest this past weekend. Mattis was allegedly behind the wheel of a van while his passenger, Urooj Rahman, 31, a 2019 graduate of Fordham University School of Law who’s been identified as a human rights lawyer, allegedly threw an incendiary device at an unoccupied NYPD vehicle.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Mattis is a 2010 graduate of Princeton University and a 2016 graduate of NYU School of Law. Mattis is a member of Pryor Cashman’s Corporate Group, but he was furloughed in April as part of the firm’s austerity measures against the pandemic. His profile page was removed from the firm’s website yesterday afternoon. Mattis’s employment status with the firm is currently under review in light of these criminal charges. Here’s a statement from the firm:

(Image via LinkedIn)

“While we were already living in fraught times, the terrible situation around the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis has added painful stress to our lives,” [managing partner Ronald] Shechtman said. “As we confront critical issues around historic and ongoing racism and inequity in our society, I am saddened to see this young man allegedly involved in the worst kind of reaction to our shared outrage over what had occurred.”

Mattis and Rahman will appear today in the Eastern District of New York.

Furloughed Pryor Cashman Associate Charged With Helping Molotov Cocktail Attack During Brooklyn Protests [New York Law Journal]
Two Lawyers Arrested in Molotov Cocktail Attack on Police in Brooklyn [New York Times]


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Bill Barr A Real Stickler For The Rules When It Comes To Weed Workers Filing For Bankruptcy

Morning Docket: 06.01.20

* A disbarred attorney has been sentenced to prison for stealing his dead client’s pension for twelve years. This former lawyer puts the guys in Weekend at Bernie’s to shame. [Providence Journal]

* Two attorneys, including a Biglaw lawyer, have been charged with throwing a Molotov cocktail at an NYPD police vehicle during protests this weekend over the killing of George Floyd. [New York Daily News]

* The Supreme Court has held that states have the power to regulate how many people can attend religious services during the COVID-19 pandemic. [Vox]

* The top lawyer at the FBI is resigning, purportedly over pressure to remove officials at the Bureau who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election. [CNN]

* The Minnesota Attorney General will be taking over prosecutions over the killing of George Floyd. [NBC News]

* A judge who is recovering from COVID-19 will be deciding if Washington State’s safer-at-home orders should be suspended. Have to admire this judge’s resolve. [Komo News]


Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Chamisa’s lawyer arrested

Advocate Thabani Mpofu

Advocate Thabani Mpofu, the lawyer who represented the MDC A Leader, Nelson Chamisa in his presidential election court challenge against President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been arrested.

Mpofu handed himself this morning after he found out police were looking for him.

Mpofu’s lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa who is with him at the police station said no charges had yet been preferred against her client.

The ZRP anti-corruption unit posted a picture of Mpofu as a wanted person.

Developing story………..

Post published in: Featured

Why youth activism must return to the streets!

Today, the struggle is something a little different, something a bit more individualistic and extensively commercialized. What once was the sound of unified voices passionately singing toi-toi rhythms in the streets, has been replaced by the menacing sounds of silverware in conflict with ceramics and fine china in uptown conference rooms. As Africa Day comes near, I write this article in a reflective mode.

Africa, the great continent of resistance whose independence was obtained through the blood and death of the young women and men of past ages, seems to have fallen asleep. The independence of African came and we put our tools away. The young were put in schools and we thought we could educate the poverty and corruption away. The young were put into churches and we thought we could pray the oppression and impunity away. We thought because we had become independent, we had become free and so we stopped in our tracks, consumed by the competitive need to accumulate which then destroyed our ethos and moral compass as a people. What is left are fragments of a struggle and resistance that once was. What is left are the dry bones of the dead heroines and heroes of the past, who had powerful and magnetic dreams of the future that they died for.

A future that has turned out to be a nightmare for their children, because their children inherited the dream but they also were lazy, timid and had an unwillingness to pay the price for this dream to materialize. The alchemists believed that for one to gain something in the universe, they must in-turn exchange something of equal value. What we want is a peaceful and prosperous Africa, but consistently we don’t want to pay the price to get to this Africa that we want.

One of the greatest things that depresses me to this day is our mockery of manifestations of courage. When we see young people who are outspoken and active, the natural impulse is for us to warn them of all the dangers that lurk around them. We have extinguished our passion to celebrate courage and the spirit of resistance. All around Africa, we live in fear and fail to act and confront evil regimes because we fear for our lives. What is life without freedom? What is life without dignity? What is life without hope?

It is important that the youth of Africa realize that the burden to make Africa great rests upon us. The struggle and resistance must not be restricted to workshops and conferences. It must now start to manifest itself in our communities and our streets. It must not exist only in speech, but in action and a willingness to pay the price of freedom in its fullest. Assata Shakur once said, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” Yet consistently we find ourselves in conference rooms and workshops, thinking that our freedom will come once we speak “nicely” and “politely” to the oppressor. The young activists of our time have been captured by this flagrant elitist struggle, that promises freedom not to the masses that they purport to represent but to those privileged enough to be a part of this five star struggle. A struggle of talk, tweets, travel and fine china.

Do you ever feel angry when you see this? I know that I do. And as Africa day approaches, I have been compiled to reflect on the state of our resistance and struggle. The resistance must go back to the streets. The struggle must go back to the communities and to the bush. It must again begin to sound like the brilliant and energetic voices of youthful vibrance with a tang of hope. The resistance must again begin to look like youth in sweat and dust, unconcerned, unapologetic and carefree. Focused and only concerned about the conviction to make Africa peaceful and prosperous.

The return to the streets in this context can also be seen to be symbolic. It represents the return to all things authentic. Africa can never be great if the young are confused and too distracted by glittering things. The things we want, we will have if we hold fast to our convictions and stop thinking that freedom will be achieved in a conference room. Our authentic stories of everyday struggles for food, water, electricity, access to education, opportunity, jobs and health will not be changed if all we do is restrict our activism and leadership to conferences. The streets are dangerous it’s true, but the streets are where we need to be until we get answers. The streets are literal and the streets metaphorical. The streets in their metaphorical sense mean doing all the hard things that we know we must do for freedom to come.

The time is now for youth to arise. The resistance must go back to its authentic self. The resistance must return to the streets! #Amandla #AfricaDay2020

Post published in: Featured

Zimbabwe COVID-19 Lockdown Monitoring Report 29 to 30 May 2020 – Days 61 and 62

On Saturday 30 May 2020 marked was day 62 of the national lockdown declared by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and has been in place since 30 March 2020, the Ministry of Health and Child Care reported an increase in the number of confirmed cases to one hundred and seventy-four (174). The number of cumulative tests done stood at forty-four thousand six hundred and thirty-five (44 635). Of these, forty-four thousand four hundred and sixty-one (44 461) were negative. The number of recoveries also increased to twenty-nine (29) and the death toll remains at four (4).
2.0       Methodology
Information contained in this report is derived from the following Forum Members:

Excerpts from reports generated by Community Radio Harare have also been incorporated into this report.

3.0       Emerging issues 
              3.1       General Updates
Fast-Jet Airlines Zimbabwe has announced that it has been licenced to carry out repatriation flights between Zimbabwe and South Africa.  It will carry stranded passengers from both countries and will comply with all lockdown regulations of the respective countries.  However, the airline did not say when exactly it would commence the flights.

Godfrey Tsenengamu, the leader of the newly-established Front for Economic Emancipation in Zimbabwe, on 28 May sought clearance from police to protest at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development offices over the alleged corruption in the procurement of COVID-19 equipment through Drax International. Tsenengamu indicated that the protest will consist of 45 who will respect all the COVID-19 lockdown measures. The police have not yet responded to the request.

At Kandava Business Centre in Mashonaland East Province, shops and bottle stores remained open beyond the stipulated trading hours. In Gutu west in Chatsworth at Jacobsdale farm people were drinking opaque beer and were not observing any social distancing. Other people came from nearby farms to drink beer at Matanda in Chatsworth.

In Dangamvura in Mutare, residents complained about transport challenges that have left them stranded such that people have been walking long distances to get to their destinations. Residents also complained that the process of getting travel permits and exemption letters particularly from the police was strenuous and resulting in most people paying bribes to access them.

In Muzvezve in the Mashonaland West Province, villagers were gathered at Biti Secondary School to buy subsidised mealie meal. The mealie meal was being sold at ZW70. The former ZANU PF councillor, Mrs Chikoto was in charge of the process. Villagers were required to bring national identity cards and ZANU PF party membership cards. Those who did not have ZANU PF membership cards were registered as members on the spot while those who refused to be registered were turned away and denied acces to the subsidised mealie-meal.

In Bikita, there was a funeral in ward 8 which was attended by more than 80 people. Most of the people gathered were not wearing face masks.

On 29 May 2020 in Harare, it was business as usual at Siya-So and Magaba in Mbare.  Fruit and vegetable vendors, clothing and shoe traders have opened up their businesses.  It was also business as usual at in Gazaland Shopping Centre in Highfield where vendors and enforcement officers fought running battles in the last few days.

In Bulawayo, Mpilo Central Hospital imposed an indefinite ban on patients’ visit after recording four COVID-19 cases in a single day earlier in the week.  Those infected are reported to include a nurse at the hospital.

President Mnangagwa ordered the reconstruction of Plumtree High School dining hall which was gutted by fire on 28 May. The President assigned Minister of Local Government and Public Works July Moyo and the Minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Mangaliso Ndlovu to assess the damage. Plumtree High School is being used to quarantine Zimbabweans returning home from Botswana. However, the cause of the fire is still not established.

                   3.2       Lockdown enforcement
In Bulawayo, it was reported that commuter omnibuses not operating under the ZUPCO franchise were slowly reappearing.  It was noted that even some South African registered combis had joined the fray in ferrying people illegally.  There was concern that those operating illegally were flouting not only road regulations but also the social distancing policy as some of the combis were carrying as many as 20 passengers.  It was also noted that lorries were now also offering transport and were not maintaining social distance.  The role of the police in all this has now been questioned as all these illegal transporters are passing through police checkpoints.  This has raised suspicion that the police are being bribed.

In Marondera, members of the Criminal Investigation Department (CIDs) were seen going around the shops in town asking for shop licences.  Most operators stated that this was a surprise as ordinarily this is done by municipal police.  Some of the operators made allegations of bribes being solicited from them for either not having the shop licences or in situations where they had shop licences, the officers from CID demanded radio licences.

It was reported that a woman sustained serious injuries during street battles between vendors and law enforcement agents in Chitungwiza. Reports claimed that the individual sustained a serious fracture on her ankle. The injured woman was being chased by police officers and soldiers received treatment at Chitungwiza Hospital.

3.3       Mandatory testing and quarantine
Fourteen (14) Malawi citizens, who included a pregnant woman staged a 3-day hunger strike at Masvingo Teacher’s College Quarantine Center in protest of their prolonged detention. The 14 Malawi citizens were in-transit to Malawi from South Africa and they had been quarantined in Zimbabwe for 9 days. The citizens argued that Zimbabwe had no authority to detain them as they were in transit to Malawi from South Africa when they got detained. Subsequently, the Malawi citizens were released on 22 May.

Returnees quarantined at Masvingo Polytechnic and Masvingo Teachers Colleges on 29 May staged a demonstration where they demanded to be given their test results and be released from compulsory quarantine. The demonstration was triggered by an increase of returnees from neighbouring countries who are also being accommodated at the two centres. Those already housed at the facilities fear they are now at risk of being exposed to COVID-19 through continued stay and interaction with new returnees. The returnees argued that they have been under quarantine for the past 17 days though they have not received results for their initial COVID-19 tests.

Through their official Twitter page, Zimbabwe Republic Police announced 23 of the 148 people who escaped from various quarantine centres across the country had been apprehended. This comes after the number of people escaping fro quarantine centres has been on the increase. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana reported that village-based COVID-19 vigilance groups would monitor and report cases of returnees who would have escaped from mandatory quarantine are being formed across Mudzi District. He added that a man and his wife were arrested in the Nyahuku area after villagers reported and he had jumped the border with his wife and had avoided quarantine centres.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana also reported that Goromonzi High School Quarantine Centre has 66 people. Beitbridge Quarantine Centre has 74 returnees (37 female adults,34 male adults and 3 minors). Out of the 74, returnees at Beitbridge Quarantine Centre, 39 are in isolation while 35 are in the quarantine.

In Umzingwane District, 40 male returnees were released from Esikhoveni Quarantine Centre on 30 May after completing their mandatory 21 days. A group of females could not be released after one lady who had sneeked into the country illegally to attend a funeral tested positive to COVID-19.

                    3.4       Re-opening of academic institutions  
In our previous instalment, we reported that the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe’s (PTUZ) Secretary-General Raymond Majongwe had advised through his official Twitter page that teachers’ unions and representatives would meet with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education on 29 May to discuss the reopening of schools and possible challenges that will be faced by teachers and learners.

The meeting was indeed held.  Honourable Priscilla Misihairambwi Mushonga chaired the meeting.  The unions maintained that they are not ready to allow schools to open until we pass through the cold winter season in which the COVID-19 thrives most.  The unions advocated for the supply of shields as opposed to face masks for all teachers.  They were also unanimous in that they want schools to re-open but under basic minimum conditions set and acceptable by the World Health Organisation (WHO). They also advised and implored that exams should be postponed until the safety of the teachers and children is guaranteed.

4.0 Summary of violations
The table below summarises human rights violations documented by the Forum Secretariat and Forum Members from 30 March to 30 May 2020.

5.0       Court Update
The Honourable Member of Parliament for Harare West Joana Mamombe together with MDC Alliance Youth Assembly leaders Cecelia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova who were allegedly abducted and tortured on 13 May 2020 after a demonstration by the MDC Alliance in Warren Park are set to take their bd to stop prosecutions to the Constitutional Court.  The trio faces a charge of breaching lockdown regulations and have since been placed on remand while on their hospital beds and have been granted bail paving the way for them to go home when they are discharged.6.0       Conclusion
The sudden spike in the number of COVID-19 positive cases is cause for serious concern.  While most of the cases involve returnees, there is concern that the disease will spread initially within the isolation centres and there are genuine fears of the disease spreading outside these centres especially in view of increasing reports of people escaping from the isolation centres. The increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases also comes as the government is consulting stakeholders on the reopening of schools and universities. The Forum, therefore, urges the government to take into consideration the welfare of children and teachers. The Forum is also concerned with reports of politicisation of subsidised mealie-meal as this program is a government initiative that should benefit all Zimbabweans regardless of political affiliation. The Forum therefore calls upon the government to investigate these reports and take action against offenders.

Zimbabwe lockdown: Grandmothers offer free therapy

1.6.2020 11:21

The Friendship Bench programme aims to tackle depression and anxiety during the pandemic.

Health experts say globally there has been an increase in anxiety and depression as people struggle to cope with COVID-19 and job losses.

Some grandmothers in Zimbabwe are offering free therapy sessions to tackle these mental health difficulties during the coronavirus lockdown. This is part of an initiative called the Friendship Bench.

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa reports from the city of Gweru in Zimbabwe.

Post published in: Featured

Two decades on, Zimbabwe takes stock of Mugabe land reform legacy

Then she broke down and sobbed.

“It was my home for 47 years,” she said.

Her home is now a tiny one-bedroom cottage in a retirement home in the capital Harare, where she spends her time cross-stitching and reading.

“I am very happy here,” she said after composing herself.

She was happier on the farm, where she spent her teen years riding horses.

“I am a country girl at heart.”

Sixty-kilometres away in Glendale, Benard Chinyemba, 60, took over an 80-hectare farm in 2002, offered to him by the government as part of land redistribution to blacks.

The ex-engineer is thriving, growing maize and soya beans, while rearing goats, sheep, fish and chickens.

“There was no real farming going on here,” Chinyemba told AFP sitting on a garden chair on a well-manicured lawn.

“We renovated the house when we moved in,” he said.

Twenty years after Zimbabwe’s land reform began, the cases of Simons and Chinyemba illustrate the deep lingering divisions over what became a symbol of Mugabe, who ruled for 37 years until he was toppled in 2017. He died two years later.

– ‘On our terms’-

Two decades ago, Mugabe seized more than 4,000 farms from the country’s 4,500 white large-scale commercial farmers.

He justified the land grabs as a way to correct historical wrongs by claiming back land that was forcibly taken from the blacks.

Critics blame the land programme for wreaking havoc on the agriculture sector — a mainstay of the economy.

Economic output fell by half following the land seizures and the economy has been hobbled since — shrinking 7.5 percent last year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube in a letter to the IMF in April, projected the economy could contract by between 15 and 20 percent, partly due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Food shortages experienced over most of the post-land reform years are widely blamed on the loss of white farmers.

The coronavirus pandemic has only worsened the shortages.

Two successive droughts have stunted agricultural harvests, leaving 7.7 million, half the population, food insecure.

According to the World Food Programme, 56 of the country’s 60 districts are experiencing “crisis” hunger and the virus pandemic risks driving people into “deeper desperation”.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has promised to import food to feed them “so that no one will starve”.

For Chinyemba, the government was right “repossessing” land from the whites, but they deserve compensation, if only for improvements.

“I don’t feel any remorse at all. The land belongs to the indigenous people. If the whites want to farm, they should do so on our terms.”

He said while black “people were killed,” when their land was taken from them, but “in all fairness, (whites) should get compensation” for improvements.

– ‘Willing buyer’ –

For white Zimbabweans, the programme was an invasion of their property. To the blacks, it was the final battle in the country’s liberation since they first rose against British colonialists in the 19th century.

The land issue almost derailed the negotiations with Britain that led to the birth of Zimbabwe in 1980.

Ultimately a deal was struck that the new government would not embark on any land reforms in the first decade in power.

After that, a “willing buyer, willing seller” principle came into effect with Britain to fund the buying of white-owned farms.

But in 1997, Clare Short, then British Secretary of State for International Development told Harare that London had “no special responsibility to meet the cost of land purchases.”

Sporadic invasions of white-owned farms ensued, but the government curbed them, with Mugabe assuring white farmers that “squatting” would not be tolerated.

Simons said white farmers deluded themselves into thinking they were untouchable and indispensable “royal game” because agriculture was key to the economy.

All that changed when in February 2000 after a constitutional referendum with a clause that would legalise expropriation of white farms without compensation, was rejected.

Days later, veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war started running white farmers off their land.

A year later, the government formalised the reform programme. Farms were either sub-divided into six-hectare plots or handed out whole to blacks.

Thirty kilometres west of Harare, 60-year-old Israel Pasipanodya Mushore inherited Rasper farm. But it has not been easy work.

In contrast to Chinyemba’s, his farm is rundown. What used to be a swimming pool is now a fishpond.

Weeds choked the maize crop. His showpiece is a herd of 70-plus cattle.

In 2016 government introduced the “command agriculture” scheme to supply farmers with so-called inputs — seeds, fertilisers and insecticides — and they pay back on harvesting.

The scheme brought hope, but not enough.

“Equipment and inputs are our biggest challenge; we have no draught power,” Mushore said.

Inputs were not timely disbursed to farmers, or just didn’t get to them.

Funding remains one of the biggest challenges.

Currently all land belongs to the state and farms operate on 99-year leases.

Financial institutions refuse to lend in the absence of collateral.

“The 99-year lease on its own, in its current form has not inspired confidence to the financiers,” said Paul Zakariya, who heads the Zimbabwe Farmers Union, which represents over a million small-scale farmers.

Ben Gilpin, who lost a farm, agrees.

“If the farmers were on the land with title or some bankable entity that is truly tradable and can be honoured by the banks, government wouldn’t have to fulfil the role,” said Gilpin, who is the director of the Commercial Farmers Union, which represents mostly white farmers.

– Compensation –

Zimbabwe’s government insists it will only pay compensation for improvements on the farms that were taken and for not the land.

John Laurie, 83, lost two farms in 2002, then valued at US$9-million.

Now wheel-chair bound and a double amputee, Laurie is one of the farmers’ representatives negotiating compensation with the government.

“We hope to have an agreement on a global figure for the immovable assets shortly,” he said.

The government has made “interim relief” payments to especially old and destitute farmers.

Some 800 farmers have so far been paid the equivalent of US$10,000 for each farm lost.

But 20 years on, the land reforms remain a work in progress.

After carrying out a land audit, government vowed to slash the size of under-utilised large farms and tackle multiple farm ownership.

Opinions on the reforms remain split. But even those who lost farms agree the situation where white farmers occupied the best agricultural land while millions of black Zimbabweans were cramped on semi-arid land, was untenable.

Economically though, the reforms are widely seen as a failure.

Independent economist Tony Hawkins, said agriculture’s share of GDP has fallen from about 15 percent to less than 10 per cent.

Despite several attempts, AFP failed to obtain a government response.

But for the Zimbabwean leadership, Mugabe’s farming legacy continues to empower blacks.

“Our land reform programme remains a fundamental cog to our independence and sovereignty,” Mnangagwa said during independence celebrations in April.

“To this, there is no wavering or going back.”