DA blames Didiza

2005-08-01 14:19

Cape Town - Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza should admit her own department carries the blame for the slow progress in land reform, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday.

"Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza should stop playing the helpless victim who blames everyone else for her own department and government's failures when it comes to land reform," DA spokesperson Maans Nel said .

If government matched its commitment to land reform with the required budget, and if it started implementing the legal measures at its disposal, the current situation would have looked dramatically different, he said.

Land reform policy rejected

On Sunday, delegates to the land summit in Johannesburg rejected land reform policy based on the willing buyer/willing seller principle.

"Government must come up with another mechanism, that is not a simple thing," Didiza's spokesperson Steve Galane said.

Deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said at the start of the summit on Wednesday the principle was slowing down land reform.

Galane said delegates also recommended a land tax and the December 31 1998, deadline for lodging restitution claims be reviewed as some people had failed to meet it.

"All these things are still recommendations, government will respond to these and will come up with a position," Galane said.

All land claims settled in three years

Government wants all land restitution claims settled within the next three years, and 30% of agricultural land delivered to the previously disadvantaged by 2014. By December 2004, only 3% of commercial farm land had been redistributed.

Nel said there was enough anecdotal evidence to point out the incompetence of many officials in Didiza's department.

One land owner in the Free State had apparently written to the provincial land affairs department on three separate occasions to indicate his willingness to sell his land.

The department never answered these letters, despite the land owner stating he was willing to be more than flexible on the price.

Pointing fingers at the minister

"How can the department then at the same time plead there is not enough available land?" Nel asked.

"Her (Minister Didiza) attack on the 'willing buyer, willing seller' principle carries no weight considering she herself introduced measures in Parliament last year which would make expropriation easier. She has the law on her side."

"If the department wishes to buy land for redistribution, it need look no further than the 4% of South Africa's land that is available on the market every year.

"There are also millions of hectares of state-owned land that could be made available for this purpose."

Didiza would be guilty of gross dereliction of duties if she allowed land owners in South Africa to be blamed for the mistakes and incompetence of her own department, Nel said.

- SAPA