Land reform panel will have to be a skilful messenger
President Cyril Ramaphosa has been lauded for appointing a 10-person expert panel to advise him on how to resolve the vexed issue of land reform.
He has used this trick before, in establishing a panel to resolve the national minimum wage deadlock between business and labour. The experience of that panel should be a cautionary tale because, despite the best of intentions, it was used to lend a veneer of technical affirmation to a political decision that was taken long before.
The public views the R20/hour national minimum wage as the precise outcome of academic research — the level that will maximise the benefits to the working poor while minimising the potential for job losses. In fact, it is a product of political compromise and a technical fudge, chosen partly because R20 is such a nice, round number.
Well before any economic research was commissioned, the government accepted the idea of a national minimum wage in principle. All that was in question was the level at which it should be set. Similarly, the government has decided that section 25 of the constitution should be amended to allow land expropriation without compensation. All that is in question is how the amendment should be worded.
The national minimum wage panel was heavily laden with poverty experts and skewed away from macroeconomists.
The land panel seems better constituted, with five respected development economists, two lawyers and three farmers. But they will need to draft their recommendations tightly to guard against their dilution in the political horse-trading that will doubtless ensue.
The land panel must advise Ramaphosa on how to execute land reform in a way that redresses past injustices without sacrificing economic growth and food security. Among the panel members are land reform critic Ruth Hall, a professor at the University of the Western Cape’s Institute for Poverty‚ Land and Agrarian Studies, and Nick Serfontein, a Free State farmer who doesn’t believe land expropriation will accelerate the development of black commercial farmers.
Hall co-authored the only publicly available information of the actual state of land reform under leasehold. Developed through a study of farm projects in the Eastern Cape, it tells a story of state neglect and elite capture. Poor farming communities that accessed state land are being left with insecure tenure and are often destitute.
Similarly, Serfontein writes in an open letter to Ramaphosa that he has experienced “the hell” that emerging farmers go through in SA.
“[These people] have been forsaken by the government, mainly due to policy uncertainty, corruption, lack of leadership, capacity and expertise and yes, sadly, political will,” he says.
Frustrated by the government’s ineptness, Serfontein has developed 75 emerging farmers using the collateral of his agribusiness to borrow millions from the Land Bank on their behalf.
His view is that successful land reform depends not on whether the constitution is amended or land expropriated but on experienced mentorship, supervision, extension, training, guidance and other support from commercial farmers, industry organisations and agribusinesses.
The thrust of his message is that the problem doesn’t lie in a shortage of funds or farmland but rather in the lack
In essence, the ANC of’will s and leadership by government and private sector role players. previous land reform efforts have failed because they’ve been badly run by inept departments. To bolster its capacity, it should tap into the expertise of the existing farming community and related institutions.
If the new panel can get just this message across it will have done all of SA a mighty service.
● Bisseker is Financial Mail assistant editor.