ZUMA BEING DECEIVED ABOUT WILLING BUYER/WILLING SELLER PRINCIPLE

"President Jacob Zuma is being misled as if the willing buyer/willing seller principle is the actual problem of land reform (see speech). The real problem is the incompetence of officials who delay the administrative process for buyers and sellers. There is more than enough land which was willingly offered at reasonable prices, but due to administrative incompetence of the Department of Land Affairs, the sales have not been finalised. If it is taken into account that nearly 50% of all agricultural projects in terms of land reform has failed, President Zuma should rather be focussing on making these existing projects successful," Mr. Pieter Groenewald (MP), chief spokesperson on Agriculture and Land Affairs for the Freedom Front Plus says.

"To ensure the success of land reform, the government should first redistribute existing unused state land. Thereafter there should be proper control over the existing land reform projects. The willing buyer/willing seller principle is being abused to hide incompetence. It is bad for existing farmers and if President Zuma wants to promote food security he should rather protect farmers against low-grade cheap agricultural product imports," Mr. Groenewald said.

Statement issued by Pieter Groenewald, MP, Freedom Front Plus spokesperson on agriculture and land affairs, August 18 2009

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter