Minister’s ‘land-grab cronyism’ (Business Day)

 Xingwana has denied impropriety, insisting she played no role in eviction and land-allocation decisions by her officials while she was minister of land and agriculture. Xingwana launched the group, Women in Agriculture and Rural Development (Ward), soon after taking over the portfolio in 2006.

She has been a vocal champion of Ward ever since, frequently sharing the same podium with its leadership. Ward's declared aims are to increase land ownership by black women, following the Brazilian model of redistributed farms owned and run by families and co-operatives. In two recent high-profile cases, in which black farmers deemed unproductive were evicted under Xingwana's "use it or lose it" policy, their farms were allocated to Ward members. They include Della Masilela, chairwoman of Ward's Gauteng branch, whom Xingwana allegedly praised publicly as her "protégé". Masilela confirmed she and five Ward members were allocated Yzervarkfontein farm near Bapsfontein last month after Xingwana publicly evicted emerging farmer Veronica Moos for underutilising her farm.

Moos launched an urgent court application to be restored to her farm, arguing she had been unable to achieve full production because she lacked post-settlement support and could not access production credit without secure tenure. Moos had been allocated the farm under the government's Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (Plas), which was introduced to speed up land reform.  Under Plas, the government buys farms aggressively on the open market, and leases them to beneficiaries.

Leases can be terminated if the land is underutilised. But the strategy has accelerated the failure rate, as new farmers cannot obtain production credit as they lack secure title, remaining dependent on state support. Court documents show Moos tried on several occasions to get the department to honour promises of support and supply her with a valid lease. She initially sought a punitive costs order against Xingwana because of Xingwana's active role in the eviction, although this was later dropped. Last week, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ordered the new Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, which has been split from agriculture, to return the 21ha goat and chicken farm to Moos.

Moos claimed Masilela was a close associate of Xingwana, and had made several attempts this month to occupy the farm on orders from the department. This was in violation of an interim agreement that the property would remain vacant pending the outcome of the case. "I went to a farmers' day in 2008, and the minister (Xingwana) got up to introduce Della and said: ‘This is my protégé'," she said. "It's very strange that the same person is allocated my farm," Moos said.

Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), which represented Moos, said it was preparing an application to declare the Plas policy unlawful because it was open to arbitrary abuse by officials. LHR said in a statement that it found Xingwana's actions "extremely distressing", concurring with the judge's comment that her handling of the case was "sinister" and "high-handed". LHR lawyer Louise du Plessis said that allocating Moos's farm to Ward also raised questions about Xingwana's motives. "How can the minister (Xingwana) suddenly say she is allocating the farm to Ward members without any indication that they went through the proper channels?" said Du Plessis. "It's an abuse of power."

Masilela rejected the suggestion that Xingwana could have influenced her department's decision to grant her group the farm. "It's the officials, not the minister, who did the allocation," she said. But similar allegations of cronyism were made by another farmer evicted under Xingwana's "use it or lose it" policy.

Themba Masemola said that he was evicted from an ostrich farm near Pretoria a month after a visit by Xingwana. "I was on the farm trying to make it productive, but she wanted me out to get her associates to occupy it," he said.  The current occupant, who would identify herself only as Nosipo, confirmed that she was a member of Ward, but denied Xingwana influenced the decision to transfer the farm to her co-operative.

"The minister does not allocate farms," she said. Xingwana denied she played any role in farm evictions or allocations. "These are operational matters, and I am never involved," she told Business Day.  "I have no personal relationship with Della Masilela, we never had personal meetings, and I never praised her as my protégé. Officials follow their procedures, and allocate farms according to these," Xingwana said.

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