Minister vows to fast-track land reform, axe bad CPAs

Decision-making is one of the aspects that is delaying land reform, said minister of land reform and rural development, Mzwanele Nyhontsho, on the sidelines of Partners in Agri Land Solutions’ annual general meeting in Ceres, Western Cape.

Food For Mzansi spoke to the minister to find out how far he is with turning around the department and ensuring that the multifaceted challenges faced by rural communities are addressed.

Tiisetso Manoko: The government on its own cannot address land reform. How important is collaboration with private organisations like Pals?

Minister Mzwanele Nyhontsho: That is a very important aspect that we can never run away from as government representatives. We cannot give people land without giving them support, but also, you cannot support them forever. This leads to us looking at getting support from the private sector.

So it is critical for us to do these private-public partnerships because, at the end of the day, such partnerships will restore the dignity of the many people who are in dire need of land not only to farm but also to reside on.

There are concerns that there is slow progress in dealing with land reform issues. What is the holdup?

That is why I have been saying we must bypass some processes that have proven to halt the process of land reform. That is the only way, because there is too much red tape and unnecessary delays.

We are, however, since taking office, starting to fast-track the process. People are able to get title deeds so that people can start having a sense of ownership of their land.

Will the government ever get communal property associations (CPAs) right?

Those ones are forever fighting as if there is no tomorrow, but we seem to be getting them on track. I have been undertaking visits to all identified CPAs, and I have been to four provinces. We listen to them, listen to their problems.

At the end of the day, we will also be having a CPA national indaba in November, and before the indaba, we will just dissolve all the CPAs because the problem with them is that they do not comply with the law.

So we must just have new people leading them, have bright leadership and ensure that they comply with the law on how the CPAs have to be operated. We are correcting them in what they have been doing in the past, and we believe that with the approach that we have taken, we will be able to address issues of the CPAs.

Ingonyama Trust; any developments on that since your meeting with king Misuzulu KaZwelithini?

Everything is fine now; there was a headline stating that the minister and the king were smoking from a peace pipe. It remains like that; nothing much has changed.