DA calls for SIU probe after emerging Black farmers blow the lid on corrupt land reform practices

12 October 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will write to President Cyril Ramaphosa to request that he authorises an urgent probe by the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) into allegations that a group of successful emerging Black farmers in Mpumalanga have been harassed and face eviction from farms by corrupt officials in the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), simply because they refused to pay bribes.

These emerging farmers have endured many years of harassment inflicted by these officials who are in influential and decision-making roles at the department’s Mpumalanga office.

The DA has been working alongside these farmers and have evidence of the relentless tug-of-war they have been subjected to by these corrupt officials within the DALRRD. We will submit this evidence to the President in order to support our request for the SIU to investigate and for these farmers to get justice.

Previous attempts by the farmers for the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, to intervene failed because she did not give the farmers’ request for intervention the required thought and care.

They also wrote to the Rural Development and Land Reform Director-General, Mdu Shabane, who unjustly referred them back to the very same provincial offices central to their disgruntlement.

If Minister Didiza was serious about helping the farmers she would have set up an independent panel to ensure that these claims are investigated without fear or favour. Her failure to do that amount to failure to put an end to ANC’s corruption and patronage that has been blocking land reform in South Africa for many years.

This scandal is yet another example of the corruption and exploitation by dishonest politicians and elites which continues to hinder emerging farmers from owning the land they have successfully farmed for years.

We hope President Ramaphosa will take heed of our call and authorise an SIU investigation immediately so that truth can be uncovered, and corruption exposed. As requested before, he must also make all previous SIU reports on land reform public. It is the only way to get to the bottom of corruption in this department.

The fact that Black emerging farmers have been subjected to this kind of abuse proves that the ANC is the obstacle to land reform, not the Constitution. The ANC does not support emerging Black farmers’ right to own the land but simply wants to keep these farmers in their control so that they can attend to their narrow and selfish interests.

Issued by Annette Steyn, DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, 12 October 2020