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.