Cape Town - The African National Congress government (ANC) has now resorted to the populist "land expropriation without compensation" to cover its gaping failure at land reform and how it continues to fail poor black farmers, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Sunday.
As part of a wider programme to meet various stakeholders and industry experts in a bid to address the land question as well as expanding support for emerging black farmers, the DA would meet the Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa, otherwise known as the Land Bank, on Monday, DA spokesperson Thandeka Mbabama said.
The meeting aimed to find out about the Land Bank’s strategies to increase funding for emerging black farmers and continuous training and support to ensure that they became enterprising farmers.
It was of great concern to the DA that there had been minimal support for black South African farmers unable to expand their businesses to create job opportunities due to financial constraints.
Reports that a livestock support programme meant for poor North West farmers was allegedly taken over by premier Supra Mahumapelo to directly benefit former president Jacob Zuma was but one example of the corruption that had become embedded in land reform, Mbabama said.
"The ANC government has now turned to the populist ‘land expropriation without compensation’ to cover its gaping failure at land reform and how it continues to fail poor black farmers."
"The DA is committed to expanding support for black farmers, especially black female farmers. Unfortunately, the ANC is using expropriation without compensation to hide their own failures and decades of gross mismanagement of the land reform process," Mbabama said.
Post settlement funding for emerging farmers was critically important for the DA, as this was one of the biggest impediments to the sustainability of land reform projects.
"In the Western Cape we leverage approximately R80 million per annum from the private sector to support emerging farmers and we will discuss with the Land Bank how we can grow support for emerging farmers nationally," Mbabama said.