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Parliament must interrogate why a rural development project in the Greater Giyani local municipality, which President Zuma has said would offer ‘lessons for the whole country’, has left a poor community in serious debt.

In early 2010, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform reportedly commissioned Mr Raphael Manhire, director of Ralman Consulting Group, to ‘assist’ the Macena Women’s Garden Cooperative in Muyexe, near Giyani.

The cooperative was one of several poverty alleviation projects launched by President Zuma when he visited the village in August 2009. Mr Manhire allegedly convinced the project’s executive committee to sign a R1.39 million Old Mutual loan, from which he then drew a monthly salary of R95 000 and reportedly borrowed an additional R250 000 before disappearing.

The cooperative is now stuck with a loan which they are unable to repay.

I will today be writing to the Chairman of the Portfolio Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform to ask that Mr Manhire be summoned before the committee to explain his unethical behaviour. Mr Manhire must also explain how he intends to repay the loan.

In addition, the Deputy Director General (DDG) of the Rural Development and Land Reform Department, Moshe Swartz, must also appear before the committee to explain why the Department, which was supposed to oversee this project, allowed the situation to deteriorate so badly.

Rural development programmes are intended to uplift communities by providing employment and skills training. That the Muyexe community has been left even more impoverished that when the project started is unjustifiable.

An effective rural development programme should be one of this government’s top priorities. This is essential if we are to equip rural communities, like the one in Muyexe, with the skills and resources needed to unlock the potential of the rural economy, and begin to address the skewed land ownership patterns that are a legacy of apartheid.