Land reform has become an endless pit into which billions of taxpayers’ money has already disappeared, and the end is not yet in sight.
Gugile Nkwinti, minister of land reform, admitted in parliament that since 1994, R33 billion has already been spent on buying land for supposed reform.
He also said that his department’s biggest challenge is to determine who owns the land. Nkwinti claims that “phase two” of the land audit has been completed, but the results have not yet been announced.
Agricultural organizations are skeptical about how the land audit has been conducted. The Agricultural CEO Forum has already compiled a task group of all role players, including the Department Agriculture, which had to investigate a land survey, especially after TLU SA firmly insisted on such land audits. TAU SA said it already had information in 2001 that the 30 percent target of land in black hands is already passed.
The CEO Forum’s task force compiled a scientific model and launched some pilot projects, but the state did not provide funding for it.
Meanwhile, Nkwinti’s department has suddenly come up with a land audit on state land, but the findings are being questioned because the process followed is also suspicious.
Read the original article in Afrikaans on Die Vryburger
South Africa Today – South Africa News
