For the new Director-General of South Africa's Department of Land Affairs, Thozi Gwanya, who was appointed in an acting capacity after his predecessor was fired, the success of the land reform process should not be measured by the number of hectares transferred to blacks, but by what has happened to these hectares since they were transferred.
“We’ve got a high failure rate in terms of keeping this land productive. My guess is close to half of our land reform projects have failed.” He blames a lack of post- settlement support for emerging farmers who, for historical reasons, were not allowed to farm under apartheid and subsequently don’t have the technical skills or know- how to succeed on their own.
Top of his list of culprits is not his own department, but nor is it the white farming community. He reserves his anger for the Land Bank, which has reneged on its mandate, he says.The Land Bank reduced its mandate to being a commercial bank, and excluded the development component. “All they do is manage the loan book. They talk about the administration of loans. They don’t talk about technical assistance. Historically, the Land Bank has been a bank for assisting and enabling struggling farmers. They have moved away from this role.”
As for white farmers, Gwanya has committed himself to improving the partnership between them and government around mentoring.Farmers’ organisations blame the department for bureaucratic bungling that discourages farmers who are keen to mentor.
Gwanya agrees, “But, when it comes to implementation, some of the farmers want to milk the cow, so to speak.” Instead of seeing the grants as a form of “working capital” to improve productivity, they treat them as easy money and then don’t deliver on the mentoring front.
For Gwanya, the only right result is increased productivity.
“We are extremely concerned about food security. The land that we transfer must not lie fallow. The contribution of agriculture to the GDP must not go down because we have transferred this land. We don’t want to go anywhere near Zimbabwe.”
Those venturing the view that it will be well nigh impossible to transfer 30% or 25 million hectares of white-owned agricultural land by the target date of 2014 have usually been shot down in flames by the department.
Gwanya told Parliament he thought the target was “very, very high.” He says the real question is: “What will happen to the land once it has been transferred? That needs to be the focus, rather than how much land still needs to be transferred.”
Gwanya says he does not see land reform as a permanent feature of the national landscape. Once the restitution claims lodged by the 1998 deadline are settled, that will be the end of the story. “The focus of this department now is to manage land tenure reform, to get that 30% to productivity. That will keep us busy for a century. But all I want now is output. I’m talking results, results, results.”
Sunday Times