Budget shows land reform has stalled, says agricultural chamber head
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s budget speech offered very limited evidence to suggest radical transformation, particularly in terms of land reform, is about to be accelerated. Agricultural Chamber of Commerce CEO John Purchase said on Thursday that spending on agriculture, rural development and land reform will only increase 2% from just less than R26bn in 2016-17 to R26.5bn in 2017-18. It will increase to about R30bn in 2019-20. Of this amount, the budget allocated for land redistribution has declined 3%, from R1.23bn in 2016-17 to R1.19bn in 2017-18. The allocation for restitution increased 2.5%, from R3.17bn in 2016-17 to R3.25bn in 2017-18. The government has been hard-pressed to complete the land-reform programme amid concerns by some farmer organisations and opposition parties that people could soon resort to "Zimbabwe-style land grabs". However, President Jacob Zuma said last week the land-reform issue will be tackled within the parameters of the law. He said that one of t...
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