The Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) has strongly refuted what it has labeled as misinformation regarding the purported allocation of 6 million hectares of land to a foreign investor.
In a statement issued on June 23 to clarify the story that has been doing rounds in traditional and social media and causing alarm to Zambians, the ZDA board chairperson, Prof. Biemba Maliti, stated that the ZDA does not approve land, neither does it issue land to investors because this mandate is outside its jurisdiction, “therefore, ZDA has not approved 6 million hectares of land to Viet-Zam.”
Biemba explained that ZDA receives investment proposals from a broad range of local and foreign investors and in line with its mandate, facilitated a consultative meeting on June 18 between Viet-Zam and stakeholders for the investor to present his proposal.
“The investor presented various scenarios of investment from 1 hectare to 6 million hectares with an indicative investment amount of USD72 billion over a period of 20 years,” he stated.
He said the law mandates that ZDA facilitate meetings across sectors at the investor’s request without discrimination or bias.
“ZDA, in consensus with other stakeholders, guided the investor to apply for a smaller piece of land in line with the already existing farm block concept where a domestic or foreign investor could apply for 1 to 20,000 hectares of land for their project.”
“Surely, this guidance is not in any way approval of 6 million hectares of land. ZDA has no legal mandate to allocate land of any size, let alone the purported 6 million hectares,” stated Biemba.
He further said any incentives to investors are provided according to the existing laws and any request outside the law is null and void.
“For the avoidance of doubt, ZDA has not granted any incentives to the investor in question and has no intention of granting any incentives outside what is prescribed in the law.”
The said Vietnamese investor sought immediate citizenship for expats and a 20-year tax exemption on the business among other preposterous incentive demands.
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