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The Portfolio Committee on Land Reform and Rural Development completed day-two of its three-day oversight in Tulbagh farms in the Western Cape yesterday where it discovered that the farm equity schemes are facing serious challenges and are no longer beneficial to farmworkers.
 
In over R700 million investment to the schemes, only nine out of 88 schemes launched between 1996 and 2008 declared dividends. Many farmworkers told the committee that they were misled into selling their shares for minimal amounts, and some have died without receiving benefits.
 
The schemes’ objectives were to promote inclusive growth, rural development, and address historical inequalities in land ownership. The reports the committee received indicate widespread mismanagement, lack of transparency, and alleged corruption. Some farmworkers told the committee that when they stop working as farmworkers due to ill health or retirement, farmers evict them from farms.
 
The committee embarked on a three-day oversight visit to farms around Clanwilliam, Citrusdal, and Ceres following up on a petition that was submitted to the committee by organisations representing farm equity schemes.
 
The Farm Equity Scheme was halted in 2009 when the government placed a moratorium on new transactions. This decision followed numerous negative experiences with existing projects. Although some efforts have been made to revive and improve the scheme, such as the introduction of the Recapitalisation and Development Programme (RECAP) in 2010, the original Farm Equity Scheme has largely been unsuccessful as heard by the committee during this oversight.
 
According to the committee, this is due to the lack of support from government through monitoring and evaluation of the scheme which contributed to the scheme being discontinued.
 
The committee will request an investigation into the circumstances that led to the farmworkers selling their shares to the original farmers and in some instances, they are not even aware of who bought the farm as in the case of Verlorenvlei Farm which was sold to a Belgium businessman.
 
The committee heard from some farmworkers that they never received any benefit and instead of being active shareholders or trustees, they are still farmworkers living in abject conditions and earning below the minimum wage. They told the committee that they live under very difficult and unbearable conditions in the farms.

Issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Land Development, Albert Mncwango