THE NATIONAL DESTROYER’S REVOLUTION (NDR)
Fears from all sectors of the South African landscape which have bubbled below the surface over the ANC’s latest attempts to virtually cripple SA’s commercial farming sector came to a head during the recent convening of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Protection of Property Rights in Pretoria to discuss the government’s latest Green Paper on Land Reform – the Draft Land Tenure Security Bill, 2011.
This Ad Hoc Committee meeting was not just another talk shop because it dealt with a South African fundamental – private property rights which are under renewed assault from the ANC. The violation of private property in South Africa affects everyone, and while commercial farmers have been beating off legislative assaults on their land sovereignty for some years now, it appears that parties from all sectors have now realized that nothing is inviolate where the ANC is concerned.
Talk of “let’s nationalize everything” from National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) general secretary Irvn Jim cannot be dismissed unequivocally. Indeed, what the ANC hotheads say is being prudently considered because the naïve followers of this communist-style proletariat believe everything they hear, and these followers can vote. Millions of unemployed believe that “the land” will be their salvation, and the Freedom Charter’s dictum that “the land belongs to those who work it” resonates. (The Freedom Charter was adopted by the ANC in 1955, with considerable communist input). Twenty years of broken promises mean nothing to the masses. After all, who else will promise them everything for free?
Although the ANC has already made socialistic inroads into the mining and other sectors via the legalized theft masquerading as Black Economic Empowerment, the government seems to reserve a special malevolence towards the country’s white commercial farmers.
CONSTITUTION
Section 25 of the Constitution – Property – is ambiguous. Warnings about this equivocacy were ignored when the Constitution was drawn up, but the chickens have come home to roost. There are plenty of “ifs” and “buts” in section 25, such as the fact that expropriation of property can be conducted “for a public purpose”, or “subject to compensation which must be ‘just and equitable’, reflecting a balance between the public interest and the interest of those affected”. This ambiguity simply reflects the tenets of the Freedom Charter upon which ANC’s National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is based.
It would be wrong to assume otherwise – the NDC is a long-term communist plan and, as some speakers at the Ad Hoc meeting stated, South Africa is now entering the NDR’s second phase.
TAU SA general manager Bennie van Zyl noted this, as did other speakers. Once the ANC took power, they made no secret of the fact that the NDR was alive and well but was only in its early stages. This was stated on television by the ANC’s secretary general Gwede Mantashe a few days before the Ad Hoc Committee met. The Freedom Charter’s provisions are now coming to fruition and the fact that the Charter’s communist-style policies failed so spectacularly in Eastern Europe and in more than a few African countries after independence is ignored when ANC ideology trumps practical considerations.
BILL
Inter alia, the Green Paper’s Bill provides for more rights within the already-existing “long term security of tenure” legislation for blacks residing on white commercial farms, including the provision of “alternative land” for an evictee. The Bill applies to “all agricultural land except land occupied by traditional communities”. Arbitrary evictions are prohibited, and the rights of persons residing on farms are numerous, from the right to own livestock and to “not be unreasonably restricted’ within this right, to the right to graze that livestock, the right to crop, the right to use pathways throughout the farm, to have visitors, to bury members of the family on the farm, to have access to ancestral land on the farm, the right to “practice culture”, the right to clean water and electricity, to farm commercially, the right to education for the worker’s family, and so forth. All of these rights are on someone else’s private property!
If a worker has worked for more than ten years for a farmer, he can stay on the farm to the end of his days, even after retiring. After his death, his family has at least 12 months to find another dwelling.
The eviction procedure is onerous: eight pages of the Bill detail limitations on the eviction process which should make any farmer seriously reflect about hiring new labour! There can be no eviction until “adequate procedural and legal safeguards” for the worker have been complied with. There is another page replete with rights for the proposed evictee, including even the provision of legal aid to the evictee in order that he may seek redress in the courts! Evictees cannot be rendered “homeless” by an eviction, so the farmer has to ensure that the worker and his family have another place to live.
EXPROPRIATION
The Bill says that the government may acquire either with the agreement of the farmer or through the Expropriation Act (No. 63 of 1975) a “temporary right” to use a piece of the farmer’s land for resettlement purposes. A Land Rights Management Board is created by this Bill so that this Board can acquire and regulate the management of land for resettlement. This Board is controlled by the government, while a Land Claims Court (also government controlled) will now have precedence over a magistrate’s court ruling with regard to land disputes.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND!
Another proposed Bill from the Department of Trade and Industry – the Codes of Good Practice on Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment in the Agricultural Sector (Notice 251 of 2012) – is something out of Alice in Wonderland! This proposal is ostensibly “to ensure increased access and equitable participation in the Agri Sector (for blacks). The Bill includes complicated score cards and points systems and targets, and consists of 58 pages of the most ludicrous demands and consultant-speak directives for farmers who would need to hire a full-time expert just to translate the spin into language that makes sense (if sense is the correct word!).
One of the objectives is to “unlock the full entrepreneurial skills and potential of black people in the agricultural sector”. (Critics will say that blacks have been in Africa for millennia, but developed nothing in the way of commercial agriculture, nor were they entrepreneurial enough to create anything resembling a functioning, developed society, as is South Africa today.)
Land ownership is to be “re-managed” and the objective of the proposed Bill is to “increase the participation and levels of control of black people and black women at board and executive management levels in the Agri-industry.” The Agri-industry, including farming, must promote blacks to “executive management positions”. (Many farmers run their farms on their own. They do not have boards, meetings, conferences and “executive managers”.)
The Agri-industry is asked to identify gaps in training needs, to dedicate resources to provide for training and internships, and to create training infrastructure for “entrepreneurs, farm managers and farm labourers”. (A real entrepreneur doesn’t have everything provided for him. He is not an entrepreneur if this happens!). Farmers must institute a mentoring programme and develop the skills of black employees and farmers are expected to “target black unemployed and underemployed graduates in all disciplines”.
Agri-industry must procure from “preferential” suppliers, for which points will be granted. (Whether the supplier is competent and honest is not guaranteed!)
The farmer is responsible for “enterprise development”, defined as the “establishment, support and integration of black entrepreneurs in the farming business’s mainstream processes. Support services such as access to finance, infrastructure, information and knowledge systems, are core pillars of sustainable empowerment initiatives”. Mentoring must be provided for blacks to access “inputs, credit, markets, technology and extension services”, inter alia. Agricultural land must be leased to “black entrepreneurs” to gain points under the Bill.
Farming enterprises are asked to undertake to “contribute to the socio-economic development initiatives such as the provision of good quality housing, access to clean water, sanitation and electricity, and the PROVISION OF RECREATIAONAL FACILITIES (emphasis ours!). Also demanded is the provision of health care programmes and related services, with special emphasis on HIV/Aids. Transport must be provided for workers and their dependants, such as to clinics and hospitals, and the transport of workers’ products to markets must be provided by the farmer.
The implementation of retirement, funeral and related schemes must also be provided by the farmer, plus investment must be made in rural schools to cover the education of workers’ children. The increase of literacy is also the farmers’ responsibility, and bursary schemes must be provided to “enable black people to gain access to tertiary education”.
Agribusiness – as opposed to farmers – must support community education facilities, and provide scholarships and bursaries to encourage learners to study agriculture: they must provide development programmes for youth, support conservation projects in “the community”, promote job creation programmes “external to the business”, support the development of new talent for arts and culture, and participate and support sports development programmes.
A long and detailed scorecard is attached to the above General Notice 251 of 2012, and one would need actuarial help to work through it.
We have pinpointed specific clauses in these proposed Bills because few citizens have the time (or the inclination!) to read the ANC’s convoluted and potentially calamitous legislation. These Bills in effect demand that South African farmers and agribusiness take over the responsibilities of government! Agriculture is being tasked with virtual “womb to tomb” support for blacks on farms and in agribusiness! This is pure socialism, but instead of government providing the services, the farmer and agribusiness are now being told to do so!
It is up to South Africans who believe in the sanctity of private property to fight these Bills with everything at their disposal!
For details of presentations made at the Ad Hoc Committee, visit
http://www.afriforum.co.za/referate-gehou-by-die-ad-hoc-groep-vir-die-beskerming-van-eiendomsregte-se-konferensie-oor-grondhervorming-31-mei-2012
