Land reform: Minister must explain slow progress to parliament
The Minister of Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, this morning addressed a breakfast meeting at which he displayed misplaced faith in the Green Paper (which is yet to be tabled as a Bill and contradicts the National Development Plan).
The fact is that the Green Paper is flawed and the department has no clear strategy to effect tenure reform. Instead it is wasting public money at a rapid rate on projects that have had a low rate of success on the past.
In the 2011/12 financial year, more money was spent on recapitalising failing land reform projects than on the acquisition of additional land for reform purposes. 25% of this year's budget alone will go toward recapitalisation and R1.2bn a year has been spent on recapitalising 595 projects since 2010, the sustainability of which is questionable at best.
I will today write to the chairperson of the Land Reform committee, Mr Stone Sizani, to invite the Minister to explain his plan to address the following issues:
The obvious contradictions between the National Development Plan (NDP) and the Green Paper on land reform. The NDP identifies insufficient security of tenure for black farmers in communal areas as the first major risk to the objective of building integrated and inclusive rural communities. The Green Paper fails to address this risk at all and has no strategy to effect tenure reform.
The slow progress on communal tenure reform; why, for example, has there been no effort to fill the legislative lacuna left by the repeal of the Communal Land Rights Act?
The institutional dysfunction in his department that resulted in a qualified audit and recent extreme waste of public money - the Department has recently been ordered to pay roughly R30m in punitive interest and legal fees for failing to pay for land it purchased. This squandering of resources comes at the opportunity cost of meeting reform objectives.
Next year the 1913 Land Act will be commemorated. This was the original sin of apartheid in that it dispossessed millions of black South Africans from their land. The DA is committed to sustainably redressing this legacy with an efficient land reform programme that takes everybody's constitutional rights into account.
The Minister, on the other hand, seems intent on stirring up emotions and polarising South Africa. This is a transparent attempt to deflect criticism that his Department is failing to provide redress for the millions of black South Africans that were dispossessed.
The Minister of Land Reform needs to focus on doing his job efficiently. South Africa's rural communities are paying the price for government's inability to effect necessary and sustainable changes in the land reform arena.
Statement issued by Athol Trollip MP, DA Shadow Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, November 6 2012
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
