Western Cape farmer’s harassment and victimisation has tacit Ministerial approval

Dear Cape Town

Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), Mcebisi Skwatsha’s failure to address the plight and continued harassment of Western Cape farmer, Ivan Cloete, raises the possibility that the actions of DALRRD officials in the Province have tacit Ministerial approval.

During his appearance yesterday before the Portfolio Committee to give feedback on the government’s 700 000 hectare land redistribution programme, I raised Mr Cloete’s case and asked Skwatsha to explain under which directive were farmers under the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) being served with notices for eviction. Skwatsha ignored the question and did not even try to show empathy towards Mr Cloete’s desperate appeal for help.

Through no fault of his own, Mr Cloete has become a victim of a Department that has lost control of the land reform process and is now moving around targeting productive farmers with dubious eviction notices.

The Department bungled his first land allocation at Bellevue farm which made him unable to focus on his work due to the hostile actions of another beneficiary who had been allocated land at the farm. The DALRRD relocated him to the Gelukwaarts farm in 2018. He did not stay long at this farm as another person came to claim land rights to the farm. Mr Cloete alleges that he was harassed and brutally attacked. As the Department could not guarantee his safety, they relocated him to his current Colenso farm.

Despite having shunted him from farm to farm for the past 8 years, the Department is now dead set on permanently driving him out of his pig farming business. Minister Thoko Didiza and her deputies are aware of Mr Cloete’s case but they have chosen to bury their heads in the sand and allow this grave injustice to continue with impunity.

Mr Cloete’s case is not an isolated incident. In October 2020, I called on the Minister to issue a moratorium banning all impending eviction notices against emerging farmers after it emerged that a number of farmers were being targeted for eviction:

• Mr Vuyisile Zigana from KZN complained against what he termed as unfair treatment and alleged corruption in relation to the allocation of Spionskop farm by the Department’s KwaZulu-Natal officials.
• Mr Velly John Mabaso from Mpumalanga had been served with an eviction notice from his Goedhoop farm.

The DA stand ready to fight for all emerging farmers who now face an uncertain future after a torrent of eviction notices were issued to coincide with Didiza’s 700 000 hectare land reform programme. More than anything, this announcement been nothing but a nightmare for most farmers and the Department must stop with its harassment campaign.

Regards

Annette Steyn MP
DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development