Johannesburg - The state-owned Land Bank has reached a new milestone, Finance Minister
Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday.
In a speech prepared for delivery at the launch of the Land Bank's annual report in Johannesburg, Gordhan said that two years ago the bank had been in "a disastrous state".
However, through the efforts of the new board, the new CEO Phakamani Hadebe and his team, a new milestone had been achieved.
"The Land Bank must now ask itself very important questions about the state of agriculture in this country and what its contribution must be, both in its own right and in partnership with various stakeholders."
The bank also had to decide how it would play the developmental role expected of it, while at the same time ensuring that it remained a financially sustainable institution.
"It has got to ask itself how it's going to play its role differently and a lot more energetically in order that small farmers, in particular, but indeed the farming and agricultural community as a whole, can make a difference to the South African economy," Gordhan said.
The Land Bank's 2009/10 annual report presented an excellent picture of the progress made by the bank over the past financial year.
"Over the next year, I would like to see the Land Bank making an even bigger contribution towards making our rural areas viable economic units, reducing unemployment in rural areas, reducing income inequality and reducing economic vulnerability in rural areas."
Gordhan said it was common knowledge that the Land Bank was beset with problems when the new CEO took over, with "a parasitic and unethical leadership, lack of control systems, lack of accountability, poor business direction, poor corporate governance leading to corruption and mismanagement, and lack of proper risk and credit policies".
The legacy issues were yet another reminder of the high price of poor corporate governance and mismanagement.
"Poor governance and mismanagement in state-owned enterprises have real costs, and it is often the poor who bear a disproportionate burden of this cost."
It was precisely for this reason that rent-seeking and opportunistic people who had no hesitation in hijacking resources and institutions of the state had to be stopped.
Gordhan said the Land Bank was "living proof" of the billions of rands that could be lost and the damage that could be done to the institution and its capacity to assist those most in need.
"There's a cultural change that is developing in South Africa... there are people who want to feed off an institution like the Land Bank, a public institution funded with taxpayers' money for the benefit of citizens, particularly the poor citizens of South Africa."
Gordhan said the history of the Land Bank over the past few years showed how people who were only interested in themselves, only interested in their own pockets and who had an opportunistic approach, could destroy these institutions.
"This is a culture that must be fought... this is a culture that must be stopped."