Inexperience in running farms has meant some farm workers have lost land they regained through redistribution
Sizwe samaYende
Thousands of rural poor who were promised a new life through South Africa’s land-reform programme are being robbed of their land for a second time by incompetent and uncaring officials.
At least 613 farm-worker families in the Northern Province face eviction or have already lost their land after local land affairs officials bungled land redistribution projects.
The disasters include some of the province’s flagship redistribution projects, such as the R3,1-million Khajadira farm that was supposed to provide a new start for 230 families.
Land affairs officials neglected, however, to tell the families that they had won ownership of the 299ha citrus farm, giving a community leader and his deputy the chance to secretly use all 230 title deeds as collateral in hotel and bottlestore deals.
Attorneys swooped on Khajadira and sold it for just R600000, after the “entrepreneurs” defaulted on bond payments and on a Leydsdorp hotel and Lenyenye bottlestore.
“This kind of shoddy follow-through and after-care service by land affairs is shattering people’s lives and their trust in the system,” said National Land Committee (NLC) director Zakes Hlatshwayo.
“What is the use of giving people land, if you simply abandon them without the skills or resources to manage it? The real tragedy is that this wasn’t an isolated incident.”
Northern Province land affairs spokesperson Percy Makharamedza refused to comment, except to say the department was trying to help the evicted families regain ownership of Khajadira.
Beneficiaries on the R2,1-million Mosiye Madipudi citrus farm near Tzaneen were slightly luckier. The 144 families also almost had their land auctioned, after their operational budget was squandered on unnecessary equipment and Standard Bank foreclosed on a R200000 overdraft.
The debt was run up by an equity share partner who refused to pay his 25% contribution towards the 147ha estate and instead pretended that government had appointed him as the “white” farm manager on a R15000-a-month salary.
Provincial land affairs director Essy Letsoalo eventually stepped in and settled the overdraft with the bank.
The bail-out was unauthorised, however, and the department has made no attempt to recover its losses from the unnamed equity partner.
“The matter has been reported to the police,” said Makharemedza.
Similar abuses have also crippled farming by 239 families at Moyingiseri, Maetjeng and Majakaname, which cost the taxpayer R2,2-million and were hailed as milestones for land reform when they were transferred to black owners in 1999.
Moyingiseri has, for example, been “hijacked” by a neighbouring commercial farmer after internal conflict saw all 39 beneficiary families forced off the land.
Makharemedza insists the department is powerless to intervene, despite spending R500000 of taxpayers’ funds on the project, because the conflict occurred after it was transferred to the community.
Concerned land affairs staff contend, however, that the string of disasters is the result of departmental mismanagement, poor planning and a failure to monitor and advise communities.
“Project officers are being hamstrung by ill-conceived and petty cost-curtailment initiatives or meddling by senior officials,” said one official, who declined to be named for fear of victimisation. “We are refused permission to visit projects on a regular basis, and are ignored even when we warn of pending crises.”
The complaints appear to be substantiated in an independent analysis of the provincial department’s capacity by management specialists Vulindlela Consulting.
A scathing report has branded Letsoalo and other senior managers “autocratic, uninformed and manipulative”, saying they appear to be “largely ineffective at their core jobs and so resort to ethnic cabals to impose decisions and win support”.
Vulindlela urged Letsoalo to implement a more ethical management system by restructuring office management, introducing better financial systems and adopting a transparent decision-making process.
Makharemedza declined to comment on the report. He did say, however, that Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza agreed that the settlement and land acquisition grant approach used to transfer most of the problematic farms in Northern Province was flawed.
“The department is therefore implementing a new Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development, that aims to transfer 30% of agricultural land to blacks in 15 years,” said Makharemedza.
The new deal provides larger cash grants of between R20000 and R100000 per beneficiary family. The old approach allowed families to qualify for R16000 only the equivalent of a reconstruction and development programme house each.
Not everyone is optimistic. “It is a step in the right direction, but the NLC and other land-rights bodies aren’t convinced that it addresses all the key problems,” said Hlatshwayo.
“Some beneficiaries simply want new houses but are then expected to run entire farms.” African Eye News Service