Land-grabs: SA farmers fret

2004-03-03 22:13

Marietie Louw

Pretoria - The Namibian government's decision to expropriate land was "foolish and concerning", said South African agricultural organisations on Wednesday.

Lourie Bosman, deputy president of AgriSA, said the decision of South Africa's neighbour did not send a positive message to the international community.

"Such a step can easily harm investor confidence and negatively influence the economy of the country (Namibia)," he said.

Namibian Premier Theo-Ben Gurirab announced last week that expropriation will be used to speed up land reform.

He said the country's willing-buyer, willing-seller policy was too cumbersome and did not provide for the public demand for agricultural land.

'Inexplicable' decision

Gurirab said the 240 000 landless people were not being helped fast enough by this policy.

After his announcement, eight farms in the Omaheke and Khomas districts were listed for expropriation.

Jan de Wet, president of the Namibian Agricultural Union (NAU), said the criteria used to expropriate farms in Namibia should be explained to Namibians and the international community.

Bosman said the expropriation decision of the Namibian government was "inexplicable" because historically disadvantaged groups already owned or lived on about 64% of the arable land.

"Expropriation will have a negatively effect on production and we all saw what happened to Zimbabwe," he said.

Paul van der Walt, president of Transvaal Agricultural Union SA, said: "Expropriation is not the right way to go."

He said Namibia and South Africa always maintained that land reform would happen within the ambit of the law. "Unfortunately, legislation is being made unfair to allow expropriation."

Bosman said he would discuss the expropriation policy with the NAU next week at a regional meeting on agriculture in Africa, to be held in Harare, Zimbabwe.

- Beeld