Nationalisation: farmers can relax

Cape Town - Farm owners can begin to relax about the threats of nationalising farms.

Indications are that Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti will announce that nationalisation of farm land is not on the agenda when he presents his department's budget to parliament.

This follows a week of tensions, both inside and outside the department, after Sake24's disclosure last week the departmental strategic plan included the possibility of nationalisation.

During the past week Nkwinti apparently met agricultural leaders and reassured them that nationalisation of farm land was not on the agenda.

However, the minister is not prepared to make an official statement.

Still, his spokesperson Elton Greeve, confirmed last Friday that the minister would discuss the issue in his Budget Speech on Wednesday.

Observers say there appear to be serious differences of opinion between the minister and Thozi Gwanya, the director-general of the department.

While Nkwinti is understood to have been quietly attempting to douse the flames, Gwanya kept insisting that he had included the proposal for agricultural land to become a national asset in the strategic plan, as it was something that needed debate.

Observers say it is becoming all the more clear that the minister and the director-general do not always see eye to eye.

This was evident this week when the department came up with an advertisement inviting commercial farmers to act as mentors in the department's programme to renovate those farms already handed to land-claim beneficiaries which had fallen into disrepair.

At a recent agricultural conference Nkwinti indicated that he wanted to do away with mentors. He wanted retired commercial farmers to obtain a stake in the land, becoming involved as partners.

- Sake24.com