Date: 24/02/2004
Source: Democratic Alliance
Title: Botha: The Drought Relief Adjustments Appropriation Bill
Andries Botha of the Democratic Alliance speaking on the Drough Relief Adjustments Appropriation Bill
I understand that the Honourable Hanekom, former Minister of Agriculture, has warned that Parliament should not offer farmer aid too readily, lest they become spoilt and dependent on such aid in future.
The ANC, of course, believes that farmers are spoilt, fat bottle-fed lambs that need to be taught how to suck the hind teat, and in this regard I must say that the ANC is quite efficient, as experience over the past years has shown. Their plans for land taxes and expropriations has just given us a foretaste of this.
The DA welcomes the extra money that is meant to prevent a disaster in agriculture, so we will do nothing to jeopardise or delay these funds, because that could, in turn, simply contribute towards the disaster, just as the delay of 21❄2 years in coping with the cold snap disaster in the Drakensberg and Maluti Mountains tragically, unnecessarily and scandalously ruined many human lives.
Now those people are receiving only 1❄4 of their damages, and 21❄2 years after the fact - but neatly in time for the coming election.
Disaster aid has real value only if it is sensibly and timeously applied where it can make a difference. In this regard the ANC government has not yet learned a thing.
For example, the aid package to cattle farmers is limited to 30 head of large stock. A commercial farmer - one who farms for the market, so that the honourable members sitting here today can have meat on the table when they enjoy their meal - cannot really make a living with 30 head of large stock. A few hundred are needed to ensure that the farmer is self-sufficient, and to enable him to survive droughts and other disasters. For all practical purposes, commercial farmers are therefore excluded from the aid.
SOUTH DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS!
Naturally a responsible government should concern itself with the development of irrigation and building dams and irrigation schemes to create food security in the country.
When such a dam, for example the Allemanskraal Dam in the Free State, begins to dry up, as is the case at present, and Minister Kasrils has the power to summarily cut off irrigation water, it constitutes a disaster, as the crops of all those settlers will die in the fields, because they depend on the irrigation water. Once again no disaster aid is planned for these commercial farmers.
Madam Speaker, we can therefore understand the farmers joy and thankfulness when they heard that the Department of Social Development is going to offer aid to their workers, who now naturally stand in danger of losing their jobs.
But you can surely imagine the shock when these people heard that this is not the plan at all. Oh no, not only the workers who are in danger of losing their jobs because of the drought are to be offered this aid, but all farm workers in all the districts declared as drought-stricken districts are enthusiastically encouraged to apply for R900 in drought aid each.
Madam Speaker, honourable members should understand clearly that the government sitting here is saying that people who have a full-time job, and who receive their salary in full, should step forward so that the government can give them a free present just before the election.
The ANC members sitting here, and their NNP friends, cannot claim to know nothing about these malpractices, because we can name chapter and verse. Deputy Minister Du Toit was informed of this about ten days ago, and challenged to put an end to it. He, and all these ANC members, and their partners sitting here, are keeping mum about this, because its precisely their intention to misuse other peoples money to their own ends in this manner.
SOUTH AFRICA DESERVES BETTER!
Is this the contract with the people that the ANC is talking about? Is the plan that this money will be showered from the Presidential jet, like manna from heaven, on people so that they will believe this is why they should be voting for the ANC?
I have news for them, which is that far fewer people will sign this contract at the ballot-box than the ANC believes. The reason is that they are tired of empty ANC promises and the ANCs nonsense - telling them how good they have it, while they are actually living in wretched poverty. In Soweto, all the while, they have to stare at a billboard as large as the Arabella Hotel near the Waterfront which displays a giant photograph of President Mbekis face. They may well wonder where the money for such an inappropriate extravagance came from. Perhaps the idea originated with Saddam Husseins Baath Party, for whom the ANC, from what I hear, harbours great affection.
The people will not sign this contract, because they know these freebies are stolen money. In the first place it was stolen from the taxpayers, and in the second place from the actual needy people, for example subsistence farmers who, because of the drought, will have no harvest or food until next year at the earliest.
The R900 that is misused with such abandon to buy votes belongs to those people, and people like them, who need it to buy food for themselves and for their families until next years harvest hopefully comes in.
The DA support the allocation of additional funds to the disaster, but will employ every method at its disposal to prevent its misuse.
Democratic Alliance
February 24, 2004
Source: Democratic Alliance
Title: Botha: The Drought Relief Adjustments Appropriation Bill
Andries Botha of the Democratic Alliance speaking on the Drough Relief Adjustments Appropriation Bill
I understand that the Honourable Hanekom, former Minister of Agriculture, has warned that Parliament should not offer farmer aid too readily, lest they become spoilt and dependent on such aid in future.
The ANC, of course, believes that farmers are spoilt, fat bottle-fed lambs that need to be taught how to suck the hind teat, and in this regard I must say that the ANC is quite efficient, as experience over the past years has shown. Their plans for land taxes and expropriations has just given us a foretaste of this.
The DA welcomes the extra money that is meant to prevent a disaster in agriculture, so we will do nothing to jeopardise or delay these funds, because that could, in turn, simply contribute towards the disaster, just as the delay of 21❄2 years in coping with the cold snap disaster in the Drakensberg and Maluti Mountains tragically, unnecessarily and scandalously ruined many human lives.
Now those people are receiving only 1❄4 of their damages, and 21❄2 years after the fact - but neatly in time for the coming election.
Disaster aid has real value only if it is sensibly and timeously applied where it can make a difference. In this regard the ANC government has not yet learned a thing.
For example, the aid package to cattle farmers is limited to 30 head of large stock. A commercial farmer - one who farms for the market, so that the honourable members sitting here today can have meat on the table when they enjoy their meal - cannot really make a living with 30 head of large stock. A few hundred are needed to ensure that the farmer is self-sufficient, and to enable him to survive droughts and other disasters. For all practical purposes, commercial farmers are therefore excluded from the aid.
SOUTH DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS!
Naturally a responsible government should concern itself with the development of irrigation and building dams and irrigation schemes to create food security in the country.
When such a dam, for example the Allemanskraal Dam in the Free State, begins to dry up, as is the case at present, and Minister Kasrils has the power to summarily cut off irrigation water, it constitutes a disaster, as the crops of all those settlers will die in the fields, because they depend on the irrigation water. Once again no disaster aid is planned for these commercial farmers.
Madam Speaker, we can therefore understand the farmers joy and thankfulness when they heard that the Department of Social Development is going to offer aid to their workers, who now naturally stand in danger of losing their jobs.
But you can surely imagine the shock when these people heard that this is not the plan at all. Oh no, not only the workers who are in danger of losing their jobs because of the drought are to be offered this aid, but all farm workers in all the districts declared as drought-stricken districts are enthusiastically encouraged to apply for R900 in drought aid each.
Madam Speaker, honourable members should understand clearly that the government sitting here is saying that people who have a full-time job, and who receive their salary in full, should step forward so that the government can give them a free present just before the election.
The ANC members sitting here, and their NNP friends, cannot claim to know nothing about these malpractices, because we can name chapter and verse. Deputy Minister Du Toit was informed of this about ten days ago, and challenged to put an end to it. He, and all these ANC members, and their partners sitting here, are keeping mum about this, because its precisely their intention to misuse other peoples money to their own ends in this manner.
SOUTH AFRICA DESERVES BETTER!
Is this the contract with the people that the ANC is talking about? Is the plan that this money will be showered from the Presidential jet, like manna from heaven, on people so that they will believe this is why they should be voting for the ANC?
I have news for them, which is that far fewer people will sign this contract at the ballot-box than the ANC believes. The reason is that they are tired of empty ANC promises and the ANCs nonsense - telling them how good they have it, while they are actually living in wretched poverty. In Soweto, all the while, they have to stare at a billboard as large as the Arabella Hotel near the Waterfront which displays a giant photograph of President Mbekis face. They may well wonder where the money for such an inappropriate extravagance came from. Perhaps the idea originated with Saddam Husseins Baath Party, for whom the ANC, from what I hear, harbours great affection.
The people will not sign this contract, because they know these freebies are stolen money. In the first place it was stolen from the taxpayers, and in the second place from the actual needy people, for example subsistence farmers who, because of the drought, will have no harvest or food until next year at the earliest.
The R900 that is misused with such abandon to buy votes belongs to those people, and people like them, who need it to buy food for themselves and for their families until next years harvest hopefully comes in.
The DA support the allocation of additional funds to the disaster, but will employ every method at its disposal to prevent its misuse.
Democratic Alliance
February 24, 2004
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