The rehabilitation of state-owned sisal farms is one of the major projects of the newly established Community Public Private Partnership programme Barry Streek
An ambitious and innovative programme has been launched to promote economic development in the impoverished rural areas of South Africa by linking communities with government structures, the private sector and NGOs.
The Community Public Private Partnership programme (CPPP) was established by the Department of Trade and Industry after it discovered during the spatial development initiative that private-sector involvement alone was not sufficient to promote economic develop-ment in rural areas.
The programme is co-ordinated by Vuyo Mahlati, a master’s graduate of the London School of Economics and a former university lecturer, who says her life is based on “a quest for poverty reduction, a quest for creating economic empowerment”.
She says that during the spatial development initiative process a number of difficulties arose in the restructuring of state assets and the promotion of economic development, particularly when communally owned land was involved.
One of the programme’s 15 major projects involves the rehabilitation of state-owned sisal farms in partnership with Daimler-Chrysler, which requires sisal fibres for the manufacture of car seats.
The problem with the state-owned sisal farms, established in or near the former homelands, was underlined in the National Assembly recently when Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza replied to a question tabled by the former chief minister of the Lebowa homeland, Nelson Ramodike, now a United Democratic Movement MP.
Didiza said the state had 23 sisal projects, with 8 600ha under sisal, but only half of this area was under active production (4 800ha) and most of the sisal was more than 12 years old, which meant it required regeneration or replanting.
There has been no replanting in recent years and only one estate, Berlyn, has a small nursery for new sisal plants. However, production was only 360 tons in 1997/98 although, in the past, the Northern Province produced about 4 000 tons of sisal a year.
“Total production costs in 1997/98 were R33,5-million, of which R29,6-million (88%) was labour costs. There was a large operating loss in 1997/98 of R32,7-million. This is likely to be larger in the current financial year,” Didiza said.
However, she pointed out that there is a substantial unmet demand in South Africa. The potential yearly demand is about 4 900 tons and in the past was met by local production.
“Manufacturers in Seshego are at present importing 3 000 tons of sisal per year due to the collapse of sisal production in the Northern Province. These imports are at prices higher than the domestic price, which in October 1998 was an average of R3380 per ton. Prices have increased in recent years. Import prices in early 1999 were 20% higher than domestic prices,” she said.
This bizarre situation in which taxpayers are paying more than R30-million a year for an increasingly unviable industry is one in which the CPPP, a small unit of about 10 people, has intervened by bringing various players together.
“Partnership is the key,” says Mahlati. “We bring people with access to natural assets to skills, interests and resources to add value.”
One of the CPPP’s key partners is the Development Bank of Southern Africa, whose fieldworkers investigate project proposals.
The Department of Trade and Industry and the bank have also established an investment project reparation fund.
The assessment of projects is co-ordinated by the CPPP and, if approved, will be developed into a viable project in full consultation with the local community and appropriate partners, which could include the private sector, government institutions, the development bank or NGOs.
Mahlati says the CPPP’s role is to sit down with the stakeholders, including traditional leaders, to facilitate the development of partnerships and business plans for sustainable projects and then to get out.
In some projects this can simply be a matter of putting the right people in touch with each other. For instance, a group of dairy farmers from the Eastern Cape approached the CPPP, which then put them in touch with Clover. The CPPP was then able to withdraw from the project.
Others, however, take much longer and are more complex, particularly when communally owned land is involved, although the improved use of state and communally owned land, and its concession to private-sector agricultural activity, are key components of the CPPP programme. Apart from Sisal, the CPPP is involved in the Eastern Cape project to research the growing and use of hemp, fresh-fruit production, organic vegetables, hydrophonics, sugar cane, cut flowers, tea, aquaculture, tourism and environmental projects.
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