HARARE Another 150 commercial farms were formally listed Friday for seizure by President Robert Mugabe's government as part of his campaign to take over 5 million hectares of white-owned land.
Friday's list, published in the state-controlled Daily Herald newspaper, brings to 2,102 the number of farms gazetted for "compulsory acquisition by the state".
Among the properties listed for resettlement by peasant farmers are 560 hectares near the eastern city of Mutare, belonging to the state-owned national oil company of Zimbabwe.
It is the site of a complex of huge storage tanks where most of the country's fuel supplies are pumped into by pipeline from the Indian Ocean coast, and from where fuel is distributed.
There is also a major oil refinery, that has been mothballed since the mid-70s.
Also on the list is Lomagundi College, a private high school, and a cooperative run by a Danish Aid Group, Danish aid from people to people.
Five of the farms are owned by blacks, including two belonging to tycoon Solomon Machipisa, a major financial backer of Mugabe's ruling ZANU (PF) Party.
Machipisa owns 12 farms covering 16,562 hectares in the Chinhoyi district 100 kilometers north of Harare, all of them underutilized, according to agriculture officials.
All the lists published so far have named black owners, but last week Agriculture Minister Joseph made said it was "a mistake" to have listed them because blacks were not being targeted by Mugabe's land-grab.
Previously, the government declared that its policy was "one-man, one farm" and was aimed chiefly to confiscate under-utilized farms. Eighty-five of the farms are in the prosperous Lomagundi forming area north of Harare.
(DPA)