Johnathan Paoli
THE Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has announced that it would likely not be able to meet its targets in settling land claims for the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 financial years, due to a reduction in the budget allocation by the National Treasury.
Minister Thoko Didiza replied in writing on Tuesday to questions from Members of Parliament (MPs) and said that R34 million had been cut from the allocation for the land reform and restitution programme.
Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Noko Masipa wanted to know what strategies were in place following the reduction in the department’s funds.
Freedom Front Plus MP Tamarin Breedt expressed concerns over the budget cuts and said the fiscal decline and especially the fall in the department’s targets was extremely worrying.
“All this proves is that the Department has failed the people. Ninety percent of all land projects have failed and the pre-1998 land claims are still not settled,” she said.
Breedt said that the decline would exacerbate the situation and increase the amount of people living without title deeds and living with uncertainty.
African Christian Democratic Party deputy leader Wayne Thring said that the reduction in allocation was a failure on the part of the government and said it would impact service delivery.
“What this speaks to is the failure on the part of the ruling party on two fronts, political stability and policy certainty. This has resulted in capital flight and our coffers drying up,” Thring said.
Didiza previously defended the government’s track record concerning land reform and said that between 2018 and March this year, the government has spent R3 billion on land redistribution and R18.4 billion on land restitution.
Both Didiza and Deputy President Paul Mashatile have expressed the need to appreciate that this process would take years and cost the state an estimated R173 billion.
Despite the budget cuts, the minister said that land reform was part of the agenda of the state.
“The department’s land acquisition projections for the 7th administration to spend is reflected in the Mid-Term Expenditure Framework allocation for the next three years as R1.6 billion for redistribution and R13.34 billion for the next five years for restitution,” Didiza said last week.
In February this year, tensions escalated over a 30-year-old land dispute between Tongaat Hulett (TH) and the Qwabe Traditional Authority, resulting in two incidents of attempted land invasion at TH owned Hillhead Estate.
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