NC farmers remain sidelined by failure to declare NC drought provincial disaster

19 November 2019

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is deeply concerned by the delay of the Northern Cape government to declare the ongoing five year drought a provincial disaster, despite the Free State and the Eastern Cape already having been declared provincial disaster areas.

The delay adds to the heavy burden of the farming community who are struggling to survive the harsh, dry conditions. All this while the next rainfall for the Northern Cape is only predicted towards to the end of November and the province actually requires three good years of rain, plus an additional seven years, for the province to recover from the devastating effects of the drought.

Despite several legislature committee meetings and stakeholder engagements, it seems that administrative bungles, including the inability of the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to wrap up expenditure reports relating to previous drought relief funding, continue to hold up the critical disaster declaration.

It cannot be that something as basic as an outstanding report can cause such a prolonged delay in this life or death situation.

The DA has proactively been pushing provincial and national government to have the drought declared a provincial disaster and to avail additional resources to struggling farmers.

While we appreciate the R30 million allocated by Deputy President David Mabuza, the fact remains that this is not nearly enough to fully provide sustainable support to the agricultural sector.

We will again write to the Honourable Premier to ask for this matter to be placed on the agenda of the Ministers and Members of Executive Councils (MINMEC) Meeting, and request him to invoke Section 25 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) to avail funds to assist drought stricken farmers.

Our farmers, farm workers and rural communities should not have to suffer at the hands of this most crippling drought, in silence. They are our source of food security and government owes it to them to be their source of support

Issued by Reinette Liebenberg, DA Northern Cape Provincial Spokesperson on Agriculture, Land Reform, Rural Development and Nature Conservation, 19 November 2019