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The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the recent court ruling allowing farmers to transfer water rights from one irrigation site to another. The DA has advocated for this change for some time now.
I will today write to the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, to recommend that she fast-tracks all water rights transfers in accordance with this judgment.
A significant backlog in water rights transfers has been building up within her department due to the legal difficulties in carrying them out, but this judgment will allow the department to expedite the process. More flexible water rights transfers will assist farmers in increasing production and will create new opportunities for job creation and growth in our rural economy.
For many years, agricultural output has been constrained by farmers’ unwillingness to invest in land that was not covered by their water rights. This new ruling will enable farmers to trade water rights so as to increase or change the areas they are allowed to irrigate – opening up new opportunities for fallow land to be used productively. It will also help upcoming farmers to gain access to water rights more quickly, and thereby facilitate the land reform process.
The DA believes that our natural resources need to be leveraged to produce maximum economic growth and job creation across the board. This ruling will allow farmers to use their water rights to increase production and job creation in a responsible and sustainable manner.