Cape Town – Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Gugile Nkwinti’s controversial proposal for farmers to cede half their land to workers is not at odds with ANC thinking but an attempt to turn it into policy, he said on Tuesday.
Nkwinti said his policy paper titled “Strengthening the Relative Rights of People Working the Land” stemmed from a ruling party resolution taken at the ANC’s elective conference in Mangaung in 2012.
Speaking to reporters in Cape Town, Nkwinti expressed surprise that the party appeared to distance itself from the document. National spokesman Zizi Kodwa told City Press the ANC did not have a policy position on the mooted equity scheme for farm dwellers.
Nkwinti countered: “It is a resolution of Mangaung which came from the policy conference of the ANC.”
He said the particular proposal was based on the party resolutions dealing with communal land tenure.
“If you then look at section 16 of that land tenure system and you look in particular at bullet point two, it talks about this one that deals with people working on the farms,” he added.
“How they missed it out I do not understand. So I chose not to engage on that matter but I must explain it as I am doing now.”
The minister said he was trying to formulate a policy to turn the resolution into workable reality and would, once the discussion phase had been completed, report back to the ruling party at its national general council in a year’s time…
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