Ivan Cloete still has not received his lease agreement 

12 April 2021

25 days after the decision to withdraw the unlawful eviction order against Mr Ivan Cloete from his Colenso farm in Darling and the undertaking to provide him with a 30 year lease agreement, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) is yet to provide him with the lease documents to formalise the agreement.

Since the report on the Department’s decision to offer a lease agreement to Cloete was submitted to the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, the DA will ask the Committee Chairperson, Mandla Mandela, to hold Minister Thoko Didiza to account. Minister Didiza needs to provide specific reasons why the Department has failed to provide Cloete with lease documents timeously and provide a specific date by which these documents will be made available.

Cloete’s fight with the Department over his lease agreement is reminiscent of the struggle that Mr David Rakgase, a Limpopo farmer, went through as he tried to get the DALRRD to honor a High Court ruling to sell him the Nooitgedacht farm. The Department did all it could to drag its feet in issuing the purchase agreement in the vain hope that they could work around the transference of full ownership rights to Rakgase.

Then again, this two-faced approach in dealing with land reform issues and the plight of farmers is hardly surprising. Minister Didiza, and by extension Departmental officials, say one thing and do the exact opposite on the ground. In her report to the parliamentary committee, Didiza acknowledged that "It is clear that ever since 2012, Mr Cloete was not treated fairly". Her Department’s delay in issuing a lease agreement to Cloete means that they have continued to perpetuate this unfairness without due regard to Cloete’s right to fair processes.

It is for this reason that the DA will remain sceptical of the announcement made by Didiza that all farm evictions will be halted in the Gert Sibande district, pending an investigation to be undertaken in the next two weeks. What farmers need is concrete action to protect them from corrupt officials, including the timeous issuance of lease agreements.

Issued by Annette Steyn, DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, 12 April 2021