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OBJECTIVE OF THE MEDIA CONFERENCE:
The objective of this media conference is to update the media on progress we have made to date with implementing our Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) plans, reflect on challenges we have experienced and indicate the plans we have in addressing those challenges.

BRIEF CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND:
It is important to reiterate a point that many often miss - that land reform is a national imperative, with the State having a constitutional obligation to implement to ensure a just and equitable access to and ownership of land to address the injustices of the past.

The past 15 years has seen the Department deliver over 5.1 million hectares of land to Black South Africans, who, through apartheid policies and practices, were systematically denied access to or ownership of land in their country of birth. Through land reform interventions, over a million of our compatriots have had their land rights restored, and once in their life time afforded both an opportunity to live a dignified life as well as a means to break the back of hunger.

COMPREHENSIVE RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAME APPROACH:
The new Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, following its establishment, embraced a new approach - the CRDP approach - which takes land reform beyond land acquisition and redistribution/restitution, placing land and natural resources at the centre for agricultural production, food security, social and economic development our rural areas. What we envisaged in the long term is to see our rural communities being sustainable, equitable and vibrant and we intend achieving this through agrarian transformation, rural development and land reform. Quite clearly, we will never be able to achieve these goals without the active participation and corporation of the three tiers of government; business; traditional leadership; organised agriculture, to name but a few. At the heart of delivering the CRDP, particularly the land reform part, is the establishment of the Rural Development Agency, as mandated by the ANC's 52nd National Conference, which will be responsible for coordination, planning, resource mobilisation, monitoring and evaluation as well as reporting systems and accountability for all our land reform interventions.

PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES TO DATE:

Land reform:
Whilst land reform has enabled more South Africans to have access to and ownership of land in the past 15 years, our assessment has indicated that some of our land reform projects have, for various reasons, not performed to our level of expectations. And we have been up-front about this disappointing performance. Our subsequent call for social dialogue and concrete recommendations from stakeholders - academics, civil society, commercial farmers, political parties, rural communities themselves, etc - is premised on a genuine desire for a collective actions aimed at ensuring that land reform, as a national imperative, does succeed.

Our engagement with both the Departments of Finance and of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries around land reform farms facing the spectre of being auctioned off, was precisely to ensure that acquired land meets its redistributive objectives at the same time contributing towards the fight against hunger and poverty, social and economic development of our people and economic growth of our country. Our approach in this regards is very clear: the Department (a) reviews, case by case, all land reform identified by Land Bank for auctioning (b) negotiates with the Land Bank to buy the mortgage component, valued at R207 million and which relates to the 88 000 hectares of land that the Land Bank intended repossessing or which is under execution (c) restructures the loan in such a way that land reform beneficiaries will continue to service their loan, living and working on the re-purchased farms (d) signs contracts land reform beneficiaries, clearly stipulating what they should expect from the State and what the State expects from them, give them sufficient post settlement support in line with these contracts and monitor closes the performance of such contracts.

I listened, a week ago in Vryheid, KwaZulu Natal, to personal accounts of many farm dwellers about their daily sufferings and abuses at the hands of some land owners. These human rights abuses, including their illegal evictions, must be stopped. The work done by the Land Rights Management Facility we have established to protect the rights of people living on farms through providing mediation and legal representation support, is promising in this regards.

With regards to land claims, the Department remains committed to finalising outstanding land claims and following representation by land owners, we have reviewed and re-gazetted a total of 29 land claims. It is important to emphasise once more, contrary current myths, that that the Restitution Act does not prohibit land owners from undertaking development and or production on the claimed land they are currently occupying - all they need to do is to get approval from the provincial Land Claims Commissioner to ensure the mooted development will not compromise the land claim process on that land.

Rural Development:
The rollout of CRDP pilot sites is progressing very well and these sites are providing good feedback for future implementation of the rural development, particularly the Muyexe pilot, in Greater Giyani, Limpopo. The Department intends having pilots launched in all provinces in this financial year, and preparatory work is already being done in the following sites in that regards: KwaNgema, Emahhashini and Donkerhoek (Mkhondo Municipality, Mpumalanga); Riemvasmaak (Siyanda District, Northern Cape); Diyatalwa (Maluti-A-Phofung District, Free State); Mokgalwaneng, Disake and Matlametlo (North West); Mqobiso and Ngxakolo (Mhlontlo Municipality, Eastern Cape); Msinga (uMzinyathi District, Kwa-Zulu Natal) and Dusseldorp (Outshoorn Municipality, Western Cape).

Legislation and policy reviews:
The Department is working hard on the review of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA) and the Land Reform [Labour Tenants] Act (LTA) to safeguard the dignity and freedoms our Constitution promised to our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters who daily faces abuse in our farms.

We remain committed to finalising key legislations and policies to advance our vision of rural development, amongst which include the following: the Willing-Buyer-Willing -Seller (WBWS) principle, Land Use Management Bill; Deeds Registries Amendment Act, Sectional Tittles Amendment Bill, Black Authorities Act Repeal Bill and the Sub-Division of Agricultural Land Act Bill. The National Spatial Development Plan as well as the Expropriation Act Amendment, though not residing with our Department, are also key to our rural development work.

On 12th June 2009 the LandbouWeekblad published an article on the huge land price differences the Department pays, as compared to private sales in the same region. The democratic government embraced land reform as part of our critical national reconciliation process, and land reform should therefore not be viewed as a super profit-making venture. In July this year I made a call to our land owners that we need to hear their views and recommendations to land reform challenges we face in respect of, amongst others, the Willing Buyer Willing Seller principle. By the end of this year, such consultations, with agricultural unions, land service organisations, traditional leaders, land owners, organs of civil society, etc will have taken place to discuss possible solutions and options facing us all. We owe it to the future generation to find solutions to this and similar matters to support our democracy to flourish and deliver the Constitutional obligation we all promised to our fellow South Africans.

With regards to the White Paper on Rural Development, Agrarian Transformation and Land Reform, the framework we have developed, together with the experiences gained in CRDP pilot sites, have put us in a good position for us to produce a green paper on rural development by early next year. The Department of Economic Developments' contribution in the development of economic policy on rural development has been very useful. Sufficient policy articulation on areas such as the creation and support of rural business development centres, development of markets, institutional support for rural areas, rural economic development incentive scheme is pivotal.

Financial resources:
Budget allocation remain our biggest challenge - and quite clearly, given the new mandate of the new department, we will not be able to meet the 30% redistribution target by 2014 with our current budgetary allocation. And in line with prudent financial management, we have prioritised our delivery, reviewed what needs to be done now and what can be done later and ensured that we are able to meet our contractual agreements for any services we have contracted. Against this background, an amount of R220 million has been made available to the Commission to ensure the restitution process is not too negatively affected.

CONCLUSION:

Land reform is a non negotiable - lustre performance by some land reform projects is not a sufficient rationale for this imperative to be forsaken, as such solutions must be found to ensure land reform succeed. Inputs and recommendations from stakeholders - from academics to political parties, from the landless to land owners - are welcomed and the Department views these contributions as important in stimulating the required national dialogue and recommendations for effective implementation of land reform in our country.

Equally important is the fact that as we deal with the challenges facing land reform in general and the effective utilisation of land made available to beneficiaries through reform projects in particular, we should do so also mindful of the urgency of addressing the institutional framework implemented by the past government which is, in many instances, the root cause of the current situation. This include, amongst others, how the important institutions necessary for post settlement support have been compromised - these ranging from the closing down of the Credit Boards which used to provide as low as 1% interest rate, to the weakening of the Land Bank that was designed to provide lowest interest rate over a period as long as 40 years; to the decline of investment in agriculture, far below the 10% of the GDP as recommended by the SADC.

We must also deal with internal capacity to ensure effective delivery of the CRDP. Several comprehensive interventions are being implemented in this regards. These range from institutional arrangements with the DAFF regarding generating interest in agriculture through the establishment of schools gardens in the rural areas; leveraging existing rural development projects both to learn from them as well as to improve them to contribute towards the achievement of the CRDP; engaging various learning institutions, such as the University of Fort Hare (which provides bridging land reform to rural development, the legal and policy framework for integrated rural development to rural development - a new paradigm); the Department of Education regarding the development of scarce skills, etc.