STEPHAN HOFSTATTER

Contributing Editor

FARMERS’ union AgriSA held an emergency meeting with Department of Rural Development and Land Reform director-general Thozi Gwanya yesterday to discuss his department’s proposals that productive farmland be nationalised.

Similar suggestions made in the past did not materialise, but caused investor jitters in a sector sorely in need of capital inflows. “This thinking is not new in the department, but we are a bit shocked because it contradicts President Jacob Zuma’s recent assurances to investors in London about nationalisation,” AgriSA’s land reform spokesman and deputy president Theo de Jager said yesterday.

The plan moots speeding up land reforms by amending the constitution to turn “all productive land” into “a national asset” leased to farmers.

Another option mooted was to retain the current freehold tenure system but impose a ceiling on the number or size of landholdings owned by individuals.

Property rights of foreign owners could face further restrictions. A board may be set up to “manage agricultural land transactions”, the plan said.

The proposals are contained in the department’s strategic plan tabled in Parliament last week. They will culminate in a Tenure System Reform Bill expected to be tabled in March 2012.

Spokesman Eddie Mohoebi said yesterday he could not elaborate on the proposals or clarify Gwanya’s position on farm nationalisation until the department’s draft green paper was submitted to the Cabinet.

Critics, including AgriSA, argue the proposals are a smokescreen to hide the department’s bungled implementation of land reforms.

Its efforts to secure tenure rights of millions of people living on farms have proved largely ineffectual and have been criticised by land rights activists and in court judgements.

It also recently admitted 90% of redistributed farms were dysfunctional and it planned to focus on reviving these rather than buying new land.

Delays in buying farms claimed by apartheid forced removals victims more than a decade ago have angered many communities and contributed to rising tensions. The department’s new

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proposals are likely to be included in a green paper being prepared for Cabinet approval and gazetting in May.

But AgriSA and opposition parties have warned they would have a devastating effect on agricultural investment.

De Jager fielded three calls from worried UK and German agricultural investors yesterday, he said. “These comments are already causing investment outflows.”

AgriSA presented Gwanya with a 10-point recovery plan yesterday. It recommends land reform farms be used as collateral to improve access to finance and production efficiencies, appointing independent experts to investigate land price manipulation, and launching a judicial inquiry into allegations of corruption.

The Democratic Alliance said it would vote against any attempt to tamper with the constitution’s property clause.

“The president himself should intervene, and state categorically that the nationalisation of SA’s farmlands is not on the ANC’s (African National Congress’s) agenda,” the party said. It accused the government of trying to deflect attention from its failure “to manage an effective and efficient land reform programme using legally sound and sustainable measures”.

The Freedom Front Plus warned the proposal would “permanently deter all investors from SA and it would create huge uncertainty in rural areas, which in turn would destroy food security”.

But recent comments by senior ANC officials suggest the party is unlikely to endorse it.

Stone Sizani, who heads Parliament’s rural development and land reform committee, recently said there was “no question” of the ANC tampering with the constitution “or repeating what happened in Zimbabwe”. The party favoured gradually increasing black equity in farming enterprises “as with other businesses”. Its main concern was creating jobs and maintaining food security amid budget constraints.

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Source: Business Day