Agri-SA questions land reform

2009-11-05 22:27

Cape Town - Agri-SA president Johannes Möller on Thursday questioned government claims about money spent and amounts of land bought for beneficiaries.

There was a 26% discrepancy between the amount of land the government could have acquired and that which it had actually acquired for the amount of money it had spent, he said at the opening of the Bien Donne agricultural show in Paarl.

The Sunday Times recently reported on the disappearance of R100m from the AgriBEE fund, allegedly to purchase luxury homes and vehicles for officials.

Möller said that, according to Stats SA, the total market value of all agriculture land in South Africa was R84bn at the moment.

"Since the first official budget for land acquisition and land reform in 1998, government has so far spent R28bn to pay for land for land redistribution and restitution," he said.

"Taking into account current land values, this amount should have been sufficient to have bought 31% of agricultural land - not the 5% claimed by government."

He asked where the other 26% of land was and if the budgeted amount had indeed been spent as claimed.

Moratorium

Möller also questioned why the government recently placed a moratorium on any further payments during this financial year to commercial farmers for land bought.

He said a number of commercial farmers who had sold land to the government under the willing-buyer, willing-seller arrangement were waiting to receive their cash, but that the government had said it had run out of funds for now.

"Since May this year, only 31% of the land reform budget was spent."

"Government now claims there is no more money left during this financial year to pay for the land. What happened to the other 69% of funds in the budget?" he asked.

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Deputy Minister Pieter Mulder said the government was erring in blaming the willing-buyer, willing-seller method of land acquisition for the slow pace of land reform.

"Other methods like first restoring the 69% of failed land reform projects around SA to profitability, is a far more important priority than to target commercial farmers and suggesting that they are not willing to sell land to government," he said.

- SAPA