/ 25 June 1999

Esta: A Department of Land Affairs

priority

The Border Rural Committee (BRC) and Eastern Cape provincial office of the Department of Land Affairs were shocked to read in the Mail & Guardian (“Back to the bad old days”, June 18 to 24) the allegation of a lack of departmental interest in the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (Esta). The article also alleged a lack of co-operation between the BRC and the department.

The BRC and department have worked closely together on a number of land reform initiatives since long before the enactment of Esta.

>From 1995 to 1997 the BRC and other National Land Committee (NLC) affiliates were the only NGOs represented on an inter-departmental provincial land reform steering committee which met monthly to guide land reform in the province.

Currently, NLC affiliates and the land affairs department hold regular bilateral meetings, and interact on specific projects.

It is quite incorrect and misleading to state that Esta is not a department priority. The department and NLC affiliates have been and still are working closely together to address the kinds of real problems which are being encountered in the implementation of Esta, some of which are reflected in the report.

The report claims that a meeting took place between the BRC and the land affairs department, where the department stated that Esta was not a priority for the department. No such meeting took place, nor has such a statement ever been made. The last bilateral meeting between BRC and the department took place on June 15. None of the problems raised in the report were raised at that meeting.

It is extremely regrettable that the report indicates nothing of the successes of the implementation of Esta in this Province. – Ashley Westaway, BRC director; and Mike Kenyon: Department of Land Affairs provincial director, Eastern Cape

In your most recent issue, you reported that the Eastern Cape office of the Department of Land Affairs is not interested in the implementation of Esta.

The facts are quite different:

l Officials of this department across the country have been involved extensively in providing information and training to officials of other relevant parts of government, including the departments of labour and justice, the South African Police Service, and local authorities. We have set up structures in each province to co-ordinate the implementation of Esta, including the monitoring of evictions and threatened evictions, mediation, ensuring due legal process and so forth.

l In the Eastern Cape, the provincial office of the land affairs department has played its role as the driver of the implementation of Esta. Almost half of the field staff in that office have received specialist training in Esta work – hardly an indication of a lack of interest in the problem of farm evictions.

l As a result of this work, a significant number of potential eviction cases have been resolved without eviction taking place.

Esta was enacted by Parliament to begin to roll back years of extreme insecurity of tenure for farm workers and occupiers across the country. Insecure tenure for rural black families in commercial farming areas was a key feature of apartheid, aided by laws which have now been repealed.

Esta lays down strict procedures for eviction, and prohibits arbitrary or unjust evictions. It provides strong protection against eviction for long-term occupiers of rural land and, in some cases, grants them a life-long right of occupation.

Of course, turning these new legal rights into reality is not easy. Forty years of institutionalised oppression of the majority of rural residents cannot, unfortunately, be completely rolled back in the two years since the enactment of Esta. A major focus of the department’s work is on precisely this issue.

Your report also suggests that the agenda of land reform for the department in the province is set by the Eastern Province Agricultural Union – and that this is why the department and affiliates of the NLC, such as the BRC, “do not co-operate”.

Again, the facts are very different. The directors of the BRC and of our Eastern Cape office have written to you setting out the detailed facts. Co-operation between the NLC and the department is long-standing and extensive, not only in relation to Esta but to other issues as well. In fact, the BRC is contracted to the department to provide technical support on another land affairs department programme.

I may mention that the provincial director of the department, Mike Kenyon, is a former director of the BRC. Other staff members are former employees of the BRC. This hardly suggests an office which is likely to be hostile to co-operation with land reform NGOs. – Geoff Budlender, director general, Department of Land Affairs