More money for land reform, especially for people in rural areas, was urgently needed, the director of the Surplus People’s Project (SPP), Herschelle Milford, said on Thursday.
Addressing a media briefing at the District Six Museum in Cape Town, she said the Western Cape Department of Land Affairs had been allocated only R33-million for the purpose of buying land in 2003.
However, the department had estimated that it required an outstanding amount of R157-million for various land reform projects.
”Clearly this is a far cry to what is needed to address the shortage and need for land in the Western Cape,” Milford said.
She commended, on behalf of various organisations working with landless people, the overall increase of the land affairs budget, but ”most of this money will go to restitution claims only”.
”We are saying land reform is not only about restitution but there is also the need to empower small-scale farmers and various fisher communities.”
She said land reform was critical to ensure that economic, social and political growth took place in rural communities.
Present at the media briefing were community leaders from the Trust for Community Outreach, representing the fishing community; the Southern Cape Land Committee; and the Wes-Kaap Ubuntu Farmers’ Union.
Community leaders who came from as far afield as Atlantis on the Cape West coast and the southern Cape said people had the skills to farm the land if they were given the opportunity.
The group planned to march to Parliament on Tuesday where they intended handing over memorandums to the departments of finance and land affairs.
The SPP supports marginalised rural communities in their struggle for the transfer of power, land and resources. – Sapa