BY REGINALD KANYANE
ANC in Bokone Bophirima’s Dr Kenneth Kaunda region will hold a Press Briefing on Wednesday following the acquittal of the accused in the murder of the late David Aubuti Chika.
Regional spokesperson, Ntombi Koloti said Chika was killed in 2012 ahead of the 53rd ANC National Conference in Mangaung.
“The Briefing will be held at Matlosana PCO, 216 Vanilla Building, OR Tambo Street, in Klerksdorp,” Koloti said.
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BY MMUSI MAIMANE
The 1913 Land Act dispossessed millions of black South Africans, denying them the right to buy land in most of South Africa or even to farm white-owned land as tenants or sharecroppers. Further legislation caused millions more to be forcibly removed from the land they lived on and owned during Apartheid. These inhumane, immoral laws had devastating socio-economic repercussions, causing and continuing to cause tremendous pain and loss of dignity, and entrenching the deep racial inequality, poverty and resentment that still plagues our society today.
Our Constitution was designed to achieve justice and redress, and to prevent arbitrary, destructive deprivation ever happening again. However, the ANC government’s land reform efforts since 1994 have been an unmitigated failure. The failure rate, depending on the measurement of success, has been calculated as between 73% and 90%.
Last Tuesday, the EFF led a debate in Parliament calling for an amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution to allow expropriation of land without compensation. The motion was rejected by MPs of most other parties, including the ANC. Three days later on Friday, President Zuma echoed EFF sentiments in an address to Traditional Leaders calling on “black parties” to unite to enable expropriation without compensation. Fortunately, Zuma does not have the backing of his party or government, though the ANC commonly blames the Constitution for land reform failure.
Land reform is a social, moral and constitutional imperative. It can and should be made to work. There is nothing in the Constitution that limits the government from implementing land reform rapidly and successfully. In fact, our Constitution is the most powerful tool we have for achieving justice and redress in land reform. Changing it will not fix our land reform problems. Instead, it will put South Africans at risk of experiencing the same deprivation and disaster now being suffered in Zimbabwe.
The ANC and the EFF like to scapegoat the Constitution for failed land reform when in fact it is due to failed policy and corruption. It is disingenuous and lazy to blame the Constitution. One major policy downfall is that government has prioritised allocating land over helping beneficiaries to farm it productively, resulting in unproductive land, which helps neither the recipients, nor South Africa at large. The transfer of skills and support into beneficiary communities is absolutely critical to a successful land reform process.
Another is the unintended consequences of state ownership with long-term leases for beneficiaries. Without title to the land, beneficiaries are unable to access the credit they need to farm productively. In many cases leases are not given at all or, worse still, are given to “strategic partners” rather than the beneficiaries themselves, creating avenues for elite enrichment and corruption. With neither title nor lease, there is little to distinguish “beneficiaries” from squatters on state-owned land.
Corruption is the biggest problem of all. Land reform deals often involve inflated prices that enrich the elite. Last month, the Sunday Times reported on a Limpopo farm that Agriculture Minister Gugile Nkwinti lined up for two ANC cronies. The deal cost R130 million of public money, while 31 farm workers went unpaid and a productive farm fell into disrepair. The Mala Mala land claim deal cost taxpayers R1 billion and yet the “beneficiary” community has not seen any benefits and remains in deep poverty.
Government puts much blame on the “willing seller willing buyer” approach. But if government were serious about acquiring land for reform, they could go onto the open market and buy farms for a bargain, without having to go through the arduous land claims process. Currently, arable land in SA is very cheap because of the drought. There is an unprecedented number of commercial farms on the market, especially smaller farms. The fact is that the ANC government lacks the will, competence and integrity to effect successful land reform. It has failed despite the Constitution, not because of it.
Policy uncertainty and the ANC’s radical economic transformation rhetoric is already deterring long-term investment in agriculture. A move to expropriation without compensation will open the way for the kind of uncontrolled, arbitrary land seizures that happened in Zimbabwe in 2000, which has reduced the country from an exporter of grain, to a recipient of food aid for over four million people.
Where the DA governs, we make land reform a priority and it happens faster than anywhere else in South Africa. This is why the DA-led Western Cape has delivered in total over 75 000 title deeds since 2009, more than any other province. This number includes the transfer of title deeds to housing beneficiaries in urban areas – the DA believes that urban land reform is a very important empowerment tool. In national government, we would enact legislation to secure the property rights of those who live on state land, state-owned land reform projects and former homelands. We want poor people to own their own property and not have their property controlled by Traditional Councils or by the state.
And we would buy well-priced arable land on the open market and allocate it transparently. We would target young, black aspirant or emerging farmers and provide both title deeds and appropriate support to enable productive farming, ensuring sustainable funding models. As we have done in the Western Cape, we would provide an on-going package of financial support, technical and managerial assistance as well as invest in supportive infrastructure.
Also as in the Western Cape, we would support farm ownership equity schemes whereby workers share in the ownership of existing, successful commercial farms enabling a progressive transfer of ownership and skills and providing access to markets – an approach which has been found to be far more successful than a wholesale transfer of land to people who may be ill-equipped to farm it successfully.
The DA’s combination of well-considered policy and effective, honest implementation will rapidly expand property ownership and wealth creation for black South Africans. And when they finally have title to their own land, they will be glad that the Constitution protects their right to own it.
Mmusi Maimane
DA Leader
(NB:Mmusi Maimane is DA Leader and he wrote this piece on his personal capacity. So, TDN does not condone nor against whatever raised by him. This remains Maimane’s personal point of view and this should not affect any TDN’s Associates in any forms.
BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI
Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, Mduduzi Manana will launch the 2017 Apply Now/Khetha Career Guidance Campaign by visiting three schools in Ga-Segonyana Local Municipality in Kuruman on Friday.
The department spokesperson, Busiswa Gqamgeni said the “Apply Now/Khetha Career Guidance Campaign” is aimed at encouraging secondary school learners to apply on time for admission to post-school institutions.
“This will avert possible stampedes and long queues that take place at the beginning of each academic year. The Career Guidance component of the campaign seeks to inform learners about career choices available within the post-school sector.
“The roll-out of the campaign is targeted at far-flung and often neglected rural areas, villages and townships to ensure that learners in those areas make informed career choices,” Gqangeni said.
Manana will have a conversation with learners from Grade 09 to 12 and further promote the “100 Occupations in high demand” list released by the Minister in 2014.
Date: Friday, 17 March 2017
1.KP Toto Technical and Commercial Secondary School, Bathlaro (08:00 – 09:30)
2.Galaletsang Science High School, Mothibistad (10:30 – 11:45)
3. Phakane Secondary School, Kagung (12:15 – 13:30)
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BY REGINALD KANYANE
THE Greening Technologies are part of the working for Energy Programme launched by the department in 2009, says Minister of Energy, Tina Joemat-Pettersson.
Joemat-Pettersson along with Naledi Local Municipality mayor, Neo Schalk will be handing over the Greening Technologies to Tygerkloof Combined School on Friday.
The department spokesperson, Thandiwe Maimane said Joemat-Pettersson is also expected to visit the smart grid intervention project in the Naledi Local Municipality.
“The objective of the Working for Energy Programme is to provide sustainable clean energy solutions to rural and low income urban communities with special emphasis on job creation, skills development and community enterprise development. The focus of the programme is on bioenergy derived from bio-waste, with more emphasis on agricultural waste.
“Minister will also use this opportunity to engage with the community of Vryburg on issues of service delivery with special focus on sustainable provision of energy for socio-economic development,” Maimane said.
BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI
Minister of Small Business Development, Lindiwe Zulu and United State of America Small Business Administration, Mr Eugene Cornelius, will lead a media briefing which will serve as a public session of the Global SME Ministerial at Sandton Convention Centre on Tuesday.
Zulu said the Global SME Ministerial is one of the key highlights of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress that is currently underway.
“The briefing follows a closed Global SME Ministerial earlier in the day where Ministers responsible for small business development across the globe discussed policy experiences to promote entrepreneurship and to accelerate the pace of small businesses development and growth.
“Informed by research and input from policy advisors, Ministers shared national entrepreneurship strategies and reflected on emerging policy interventions and programme ideas which sought to promote job creation and economic growth,” she said.
The details of the media briefing are as follows:
DATE: Tuesday, 14 March 2017
TIME: 16:00 to 17:15
VENUE: Sandton Convention Centre – Bill Gallagher Room Level 2
Ministers from the following countries, among others, will be in attendance; Benin, Guatemala, Mali, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Tunisia, USA and Zambia.
BY BAKANG MOKOTO
THE Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture, Rejoice Mabudafhasi in partnership with the National Library of South Africa (NLSA) and the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) will launch the South African Library Week at Sunrise View Primary and Secondary Schools in Rustenburg on Friday.
Mabudafhasi said the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) will celebrate South African Library Week (SALW) from 18-26 March 2017 with the theme “My Library, Your Library“ and sub-themes: “My Library, My Home”, “Mind your Library” and “Tell me about your Library”.
“The theme, “My Library, Your library” takes libraries into the heart of the community and strives to awaken a sense of ownership in each community member. The theme encourages people to take libraries to heart and to treat these as their homes so that destroying libraries and burning books becomes unthinkable.
“The theme is a reminder to all library users that the library is a communal space that caters to specific needs whether these are educational, social, recreational or informative. Prior to the launch of the SALW, we will officially open Papi Ntjana Community Library on Thursday as part of the build-up to Library Week campaign,” she said.
Mabudafhasi further said LIASA remains aligned with the South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP) for 2030. She said that will shape communities through skills development in an attempt to reduce unemployment especially amongst the youth as well as the expansion of the job market with knowledgeable workers and through entrepreneurship.
“While the NDP/Vision 2030 sees education as a road to national economic prosperity, the current outlook is gloomy. A report released in November 2016 placed South African grade 7 science and mathematics competencies at the bottom of global rankings of 57 countries. Libraries have positioned themselves in this space between aspiration and delivery providing support for education.
“It needs the community to recognize this key advantage and to take up further the opportunities this brings. Let us make reading part of our daily lives and let everyone of us share a book with a colleague, family, friends and neighbours as a way of enhancing social cohesion. Together, let us turn South Africa into a reading nation.
She added that they will use the knowledge acquired through reading to strive towards a better and literate South Africa. Mabudafhasi said the LIASA is the national professional association that represents libraries and information institutions.
“All library and information workers, millions potential users of libraries in South Africa need to unite, develop and empower all people in the library and information field. It represents the interests of and promotes the development and image of library and information services in South Africa,” Mabudafhasi said.
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