Xingwana’s land-repo threats irk communists

Even tripartite alliance partners have accused land and agriculture minister Lulama Xingwana of cheap politicking for threatening to take away land from land reform beneficiaries not farming productively in a “use it or lose it” policy.
Agri SA and the South African Communist Party (SACP) said the minister was passing the buck by blaming beneficiaries for her failures, while the National Emerging Red Meat Producers Organisation (Nerpo) said all unused land should be repossessed, but only once proper state support was given.
Mazibuko Jara, SACP member and a land reform and agricultural policy analyst, said the minister’s threat was aimed at the wrong people. “She was ensuring land reform beneficiaries don’t even have a remote possibility of success, with inadequate budgets, a shortage of staff and an indecisive department, deficient post-settlement support sustaining a neo-liberal land reform policy framework and a bias for export-orientated agriculture,” said Jara.
Annelize Crosby, Agri SA parliamentary representative and legal and land affairs advisor, said Xingwana’s response to criticism over the unsatisfactory outcome of land reform blamed everyone except the bureaucracy under her management.
“Had the Department of Land Affairs not been subjected to corruption, nepotism, laxness and mismanagement, the minister would not have found it necessary to dismiss a director general and three land claims commissioners,” said Crosby.
Crosby said Agri SA would not unconditionally support untested “use-or-lose” rules envisaged by the minister. She said implementing this principle is based on the assumption land-reform beneficiaries intentionally neglect farms, while they’re often victims of the state’s failure to provide settlement aid in time.
But Nerpo general manager Aggrey Mahanjana welcomed the minister’s announcement. “The repossession of unproductive agricultural land must not only be limited to land reform beneficiaries, but to all owners of agricultural land in South Africa, including commercial farmers,” said Mahanjana. – Peter Mashala