HARARE – Zimbabwe’s long-disputed agricultural compensation framework has come under renewed scrutiny as human rights advocates warn that the current payment structure creates a tiered system of property rights that prioritizes foreign investors over local citizens. The criticism centers on a widening disparity between the treatment of landowners protected by Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) and those—predominantly Zimbabweans—who are being offered heavily discounted treasury bonds for their lost assets.
In a formal open letter addressed to President Emmerson Mnangagwa dated 24 February 2026, Ben Freeth, spokesperson for SADC Tribunal Rights Watch, characterized the government’s approach as “weighted favouritism.” While the government has begun facilitating the return of land or full value compensation for roughly 0.5% of claimants from countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark, Zimbabwean farmers face a far more precarious financial settlement. Under the current offer, local farmers receive a nominal 1% cash payment for infrastructure improvements, with the balance paid in long-term government bonds that many fear will be eroded by the country’s history of hyperinflation.
“We therefore have a very weighted system of favouritism where foreigners are being allocated massively disproportionate rights over and above the rights of local people,” noted Freeth in his correspondence. “How can one group of people be allocated more rights than another group of people? This is discriminatory.”
The financial disconnect is further highlighted by recent budgetary allocations. Critics have pointed to a US$15 million tender awarded for state security infrastructure as an example of misaligned priorities, noting that the sum is five times larger than the US$3 million reportedly earmarked in the national budget for the thousands of non-BIT farmers. For many of these local farmers, now in their 70s and 80s, the farms represented their only viable pension, leaving them destitute while a small elite and foreign treaty-holders access more robust settlements.
The shadow of the 2008 SADC Tribunal ruling—which found Zimbabwe’s land seizures to be discriminatory—continues to loom over the Mnangagwa administration’s efforts to re-engage with international lenders. Despite the 17-year delay in enforcing the Campbell Judgment, the issue remains a significant hurdle for South African and American investors, who view the restoration of bankable property rights as a prerequisite for large-scale capital injection. The government has defended its “Global Compensation Deed” as a pragmatic necessity given the nation’s US$21 billion debt burden, but the lack of a uniform standard continues to rattle market confidence.
As the government attempts to clear its arrears with the African Development Bank, the pressure to reform the compensation framework is intensifying. Analysts suggest that unless the “dual system of rights” is addressed, the agricultural sector may remain hamstrung by legal uncertainty, preventing the very productivity the state hopes to restore. For the Zimbabwean business community, the debate is no longer just about historical redress, but about whether the country can establish a single, transparent rule of law that protects all investors equally.
