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| 27 December 2001 | E-Mail this page to a friend |
Then last week, despite the urgency of the situation, we were told that a special strategy meeting would be convened in January to determine measures to rescue the rand. The tragedy of the fiasco, however, is that the ANC government is the cause of it, not the solution.
As this column remarked on December 14, international political mistrust of the Mbeki government lies at the root of our currency's crisis. While much is made of the "fundamentals" of the economy being sound, there are other fundamentals which are very unsound. Analyst Ron McGregor (Sunday Times, December 9) put it bluntly when he stated "the currency is on the skids because the management of the country is not in responsible hands". Essentially, of course, the comparative
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Mbeki's policy on and our proximity to Zimbabwe have been repeatedly cited as negative factors. Yet Botswana's currency has not taken the beating the rand has despite its SADC membership. The retirement of senior deputy Reserve Bank governor James Cross, the crisis in Argentina, the slow pace of privatisation and other flavours of the moment are routinely served up to explain the rand's woes. But all this tip-toeing around no longer has credibility. There has to be something more fundamental. In the global village the dissemination of information is vast and it also defies political correctness.
Although the National Land Tenure Conference held in Durban a month ago received very little local coverage, the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) has ensured that the various papers delivered at the conference were e-mailed worldwide to opinion-makers, policy-makers, bankers and investors.
It is from such sources that one comes to appreciate just how unsound, if not doomed, South Africa's agricultural sector really is. Yet the author of the chaos in this essential sector of life in South Africa is the ANC government itself.
'Organised agriculture is being strangled to death by those who seek only to occupy farms and not to continue their productivity.'
"Land reform is a failure as witnessed by the scores of farms destroyed through the government's irrational land distribution policy," stated Jack Loggerenberg of the TAU. These occupations destroy not only the value of the farms directly involved but also affect the values of neighbouring farms. As a result farmers are often unable to obtain bank loans to finance new crops. Selling is hardly an option because buyers are wary of such situations. Ultimately farms affected in this way end up as squatter camps.
"Incremental occupations are no better than outright land invasions," states Loggerenberg. Under
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In his paper, Philip du Toit of the Agricultural Employers Association cites the trashing of several once outstanding agricultural projects as a result of ANC land reform policy. Zebediela Citrus Estate, once the largest of its kind in the world with an annual harvest worth R30 million, is in ruins today losing more than R35 million per annum. Taken over by the Agricultural and Rural Development Corporation, its managers were replaced by people who had no farming experience. Half the citrus trees have died and hundreds of employees have been retrenched.
The Lisbon Citrus and Mango Estate, once our largest exporter of mangoes, has met a similar fate. So has the Saringwa Estate in the Lowland which is now R17 million in debt. The Gillemsberg Citrus and Cattle Boerdery, once debt free and producing R14 million per year, has been totally plundered. This once magnificent 25 000 hectare gem is now a huge squatter camp. One of the largest pig farms in the country was also handed over in a ceremony attended by Nelson Mandela himself who claimed that the farm would serve "as a breadbasket of the community". Today all the pigs are gone and squatters are living in their pens.
Around the country examples abound of the systematic destruction of the last remaining food exporting infrastructure in Africa. As in Zimbabwe, the claim of "racial imbalance" in land ownership is a red herring. With the government owning around 25% of South Africa's land, there is ample land available for those who want to work it. But that is not being distributed. Instead organised agriculture is being strangled to death by those who seek only to occupy farms and not to continue their productivity.
This state-sanctioned mismanagement of so-called land reform is not only destroying food-production potential, it is also destroying confidence in the future. A recent survey by the TAU indicated
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But it is not only the prospect of South Africa becoming another African basket case that is driving down the rand. It is a whole battery of ruination scenarios that is scaring off investors. These include what Tony Leon has called Mbeki's "inspired madness" as regards ANC policy on Aids, the R66 billion arms deal, rampant corruption and incompetence, collapsing health, education and social services, urban degeneration, crime and support for Mugabe's tyranny. They are the reasons the key players on the JSE have relocated to London and why there is such an unprecedented capital outflow. Ironically, in 1986, at the height of ANC-inspired sanctions and internal strife, the rand was never weaker than R2,25 to the U.S. dollar.
Two stark realities confront South Africa as 2002 dawns: the one is that there can be no rescue of the rand through the offices of those whose mismanagement of South Africa has brought about the currency's crisis; the other is that South Africa's need for a change of government is becoming as desperate as Zimbabwe's.
Last 25 Visitor Comments |
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| Name | Subject | Date | |
| Taetjo | taetjo_at_yahoo.com | Zebediela | 4/15/2008 |
| We should stick together guys. There is no time to be hating each other because of our skin colours. Yes the ANC government is messed up but we as a people need to stand for our rights. Why don't the government just leave the farms the way they are and allocate cheaper land to those who want to farm? I don't see why a land that was unoccupied at first should be given to an individual with an ANC affilliation. They should focus on making children and South Africans at large more knowledgeable through education. | |||
| Motsepe | motsepemaphoso_at_gmail.com | agriculture demise | 12/12/2007 |
| I am from zebediela. We have many farm from our land but they don't help us. there is mines but don't employ us. we are unemployed write now. you can help us with idea to be employed. thank you Motsepe Maphoso | |||
| andre de bruin-tshakuma | tshakuma_at_yahoo.co.uk | Subject | 4/2/2007 |
| i read your article about the collapse of the rand and farm lands in 2001. How are you saying now that the rand is back to where it belongs. You where saying in 1986 the rand never went below R2.20 to the dollar. Your reality was unfounded because during the appartheid years the true value of the rand was not known or was inaccurate. Sebediela is now back in private hands and the farm is improving by the day. we the white people we are unfair sometimes when we criticise the govenrment. When things are going well we say much, we only wait for disaster befire we comment. I belive that we arer all africans and lets put africa first. | |||
| George Cameron | georgew_at_turboweb.org | Zebediela | 2/21/2007 |
| How sad to see the decline of what was once an example of agricultural achievement. I was born there in 1954 and grew up on Zebediela. The happiest times of my life was spend there.I have the happy memories, but some people have to suffer it now due to politicians with brains that make two thick planks look like a computer! | |||
| Jaco Strauss | jaco@strauss.za.com | And now? | 10/29/2003 |
| Yes Hennie, on the face of it you have a strong case, but I think your optimism might be a bit premature. Zebediela seems to be back in private hands, which accounts for its change of fortunes. Agriculture in general is however not off the hook yet. Just the other day they showed a farm (on SABC news nogal) which was taken over for millions and redistributed to so-called PDIs. Barely a year later there is nothing left of it. The govt is still adament to confiscate vast areas of profitable commercial farmland, so the future is not all rosy. As far as the Rand goes, the govt position towards Zimbabwe is a major contributor to the volatility of the currency which is actually its greatest weakness. How can importers and exporters plan ahead if they have no idea where the currency is going to be a month in the future, what to say a year? And even now that all claim we have a strong rand, it is still weak and undervalued. More importantly, the slaughtering of farmers is still carrying on unabated - with the government unable, or unwilling, to put an end to it! | |||
| Hennie Bester jr. | hennie.bester@worldonline.co.za | And now? | 10/27/2003 |
| Now that the ZAR has recovered nearly 60% of its value over the last 12 months, I take it all of the above article can be stood on its head? So how would you rephrase the sentence: "Two stark realities confront South Africa as 2002 dawns: the one is that there can be no rescue of the rand through the offices of those whose mismanagement of South Africa has brought about the currency's crisis..." As to Zebediela: the future look bright - see http://www.agritv.co.za/ep028st01.html Jaco, take this off your website, your being made to look an arse. | |||
| Adriana Stuijt | adrianastuijt_at_hotmail.com | Zebediela | 2/20/2003 |
| Do you have any new information about Zebediela except that the Limpopo government now wants to throw more about R3-million more at it? To do what with exactly? http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1288981-6079-0,00.html also see: http://www.censorbugbear.com | |||
| adrianastuijt@hotmail.com | adrianastuijt_at_hotmail.com | agricultural demise | 11/5/2002 |
| http://www.censorbugbear.com | |||
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