workers’ ownership scheme Thuli Nhlapo The Northern Province government has blocked a Tzaneen farmer’s efforts to sell land to his employees after accusing the farmer of trying to short-change his workers.
The farm workers have denied the government’s claim and stood by their employer and the plan of owning shares on the avocado farm. In spite of the fact that David Hilton- Barber amended his initial application, in terms of which workers would have borrowed more funds over and above their settlement grant, the government continued to reject his application saying farm workers did not want to get into business with a huge loan burden.
Hilton-Barber asked why has there been no reaction from the government. “Is it that officials in [the Department of Agriculture and] Land Affairs are unwilling or unable to make decisions within the department’s own policy framework?” The drama all began in 1997 when Hilton- Barber decided to form a partnership with 50 permanent workers on his Narrowdale Farm, motivated by the land policy, whereby each family could access R15E000 for purposes of land acquisition. After the first application was rejected, Hilton-Barber with the help of a government agricultural economist and the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), which acted as a facilitator after commissioning a feasibility study, amended the proposal. No borrowing was required on the second application and the workers’ trust needed between 20% and 25% of the equity in the farm. Hilton-Barber also undertook to apply all the income received from the sale of equity to reduce the debt to the Land Bank. The agricultural economist forwarded his recommendations to the project officer and Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs Deputy Director Jane Morema, and that was the start of an endless paternalistic struggle and bureaucratic bungle. When the Mail & Guardian questioned Morema about the progress of the application, she cited “farm workers’ reluctance” as the stumbling block to approving the plan. However, a furious farm worker, John Robert Gahandze, said they were tired of waiting for the government to fulfill its promises. “It’s a lie. We’ve been more than willing to take part in the plan. We want to own this farm with our employer.” When questioned about the signing ceremony for the Narrowdale Employee Equity Scheme, which was held on January 9 1998 and where 100% of farm workers agreed to participate in the scheme, a surprised Morema said: “I don’t know how the farmer coerced them to sign because I know they didn’t want to be part of the scheme.” Because Hilton-Barber alleged that the regional office validated the acceptance on January 19 1998, Morema said: “We didn’t validate the acceptance but we accepted it.”
Morema claimed that recommendations sent to her coincided with the policy review in the department, which then left the application unapproved in her office since she is still waiting for “the necessary precautions in the form of criteria to be considered when dealing with such applications”. According to Morema, there is no policy in place and therefore no application could be approved. “It’s no longer R15E000 per household, that’s why we have to wait.” Gay Khaile, representative of the minister of agriculture and land affairs, confirmed that there was policy review regarding equity schemes that will make sure of full management participation by farm workers. According to Hilton-Barber, future management on the farm would be four directors representing the owners and two from the workers’ trust. While Khaile mentioned that provincial offices were supposed to approve applications when they were satisfied about their economic viability, Morema was convinced that it was the minister’s duty to approve any project in any province. Therefore, she will send the Narrowdale application to Pretoria after the provincial committee has checked it. However, two weeks before, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza considered using expropriation to make land available for restitution to speed up the redistribution process after the willing- buyer, willing-seller and market-forces principle had proved futile.
ENDS