Thank you Director-General, thank you colleagues and Deputy Minister and our colleague, MEC Norman Shushu.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for coming up today. I’ve been given a task, which I think I will try my best to perform. This task was given to me yesterday. Now, you can imagine how much work I had to do overnight to try and understand what it is that they want me to say. In other words, what I’m going to say here is what has been decided by Deputy Minister Lechesa Tsenoli and the officials of the department and they’ve asked me to say it to you.
So, if in what I will be saying there would be anything you wouldn’t like, don’t blame them. Blame me for that, but if you like the things I’m going to say, know that at least I’ve stuck to the mandate. So, you just have to be happy with them. That’s what he was making sure I understand coming here now. I’m not sure why he suspected that I might say something wrong here.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, you are very, very important in the process of land reform, of rural development in our country. You are very important. I hope you understand that.
Now, I hope you understand that you are Communal Property Associations. Now, Communal Property Associations are the people who either through restitution were given land back by the State collectively and all the Communal Property Associations, they are together an association, all of them.
Those people elect committees, the CPA committees. Now, what we don’t often do is to draw a distinction between the Communal Property Association, which is all the people and the Communal Property Association Committee, which is a few people entrusted with the responsibility of running the affairs of the whole. That is what we have not been doing, all of us, yourselves and ourselves. Perhaps I should have started with ourselves and yourselves, because we introduced the CPAs to you as the government and we never explained that very fundamental difference between the two; that the Communal Property Association is all the people.
Those then who become elected become the committee of the Communal Property Association and therefore they are then entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out the wishes of the whole. And the consequence of this lack of explaining this difference, this distinction and unity between the two things that constitute the one, the consequence is that those who get elected think that they are the CPA and behave as if it’s their farm. You know that.
Now, we don’t want to blame you for that, because we want to blame ourselves for having failed to explain this point I’m explaining now. I’m not suggesting that all of you did not understand that, but the conduct, which has been dominant amongst CPAs, reflect a lack of understanding of this relationship I am drawing between the Communal Property Association, meaning the whole, and the Communal Property Association Committees meaning the small group, which is entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out the wishes of the whole.
So, that is number one about this conference. That’s point number one. Now, point number two is that once we then become that CPA, that big body with this committee, there are rules that we must follow, because this is an act of Parliament.
CPAs are established in terms of an Act of Parliament and therefore inherent in any law there is accountability in any law.
In fact, even in voluntary associations where people come together without a law of Parliament, there is a constitution and there are rules and those are institutions, which are the basis of accountability among the members, to one another and those who are entrusted with the responsibility to the whole.
So, the CPA, having been established in terms of a law of Parliament of the country, it enforces certain accountability and responsibilities on all of us. The reason we then elect a small committee is because of that; to ensure that there are people who make sure that all of us as a whole, as a CPA we account to the country, because amongst other things, once every year the Director-General is supposed to submit to Parliament a report about the state of each and every CPA in the country.
How is it happening? How is it rather going with each and every CPA in the country?
In other words, not only you have to account in terms of the law, but he, the Director-General on our behalf now as a department and government, has to account to Parliament.
Now, since the establishment of the CPAs, he has accounted only once to Parliament about you as CPAs, last year. When did you DG?
Director-General: For the first time.
Minister: For the first time ever it was last year, since?
Director-General: Since 1996.
Minister: Since 1996. Can you imagine that? What does it say about us all? So, you and ourselves as the department, it will be the pot blaming the kettle if we start blaming each other here. We can’t blame you. You can’t blame us. We are all in a mess. We have failed to account to the nation, all of us. We have to correct that. I’m saying the second thing is accountability. That goes with our existence in terms of the law of the country.
Now, when you are elected into that position and all of us are appointed into our positions, we constitute a leadership, a group of people who are supposed to lead in terms of the responsibility entrusted upon us. Now, Nelson Mandela says if a leader cannot carry out his or her own decisions, that leader is not worthy of the name of being a leader. You’ve heard him say that.
So, indeed let us redeem ourselves so that we become worthy of the definition of leadership, so that we are actually regarded as leaders indeed by those who entrusted us with the responsibility, all of us. I hope the DG has prepared a report and, of course, he is probably smiling all the way, because now we will be able from here to submit a report to Parliament, a report that comes from you about the state of your own CPAs.
The Deputy Minister will deal with that point and I’m sure MEC Shushu will too. He has got lots of ideas about CPAs, based on experience on the ground, but even more importantly you.
The third thing is that now we are changing. We are transforming the land space in the country and you are one of the main actors in that process of change. Now, in change there are always casualties when there is change. Now, you may have done some of the wrong things, as you do your work there as CPAs. You know that. This is not a court of law where you are going to confess your sins, or this is not a church where you are going to confess your sins or a court of law where you are going to be asked to take an oath and then say so help me God and then I will tell the truth, blah-blah-blah. You know yourself it is enough for you to feel sorry for yourself about what you do and say.
Today I will stop it; I won’t do it again. I won’t mess up, because the CPAs do a lot of mess-up. So, forget about what you have been doing in the past. It must sit in your conscience now. What we want to do now is to learn from those mistakes and move on, because all of us have made mistakes, serious mistakes in some instances. Let’s move on. That’s the third thing. Move on, because we are transforming the country. During transformation there will always be casualties.
In terms of some people doing the wrong things, which hurt other people, some people, especially a society which just comes out of extreme oppression and hardship, at the slightest opportunity they get they just want to grab everything to themselves and for themselves also, not even for their families, by the way, just for themselves as individuals. I mean, this is a family man or woman, but he just at that moment forgets about the family and thinks about himself or herself. That’s a product of oppression over many, many years. Fine, that’s a lesson. It’s painful now. It’s painful now. Let’s move on. Let’s move on.
Fourthly, now you see on the screen there is a nice picture of a soccer ball. I hope you see it. Where is it? Change, change, transformation – you see there it is written “agrarian transformation system”. This is all that we stand for as a department. You are there too. You are part of that thing, that soccer ball. You are part of the soccer ball. So, all of us, we are subject to this thing we call agrarian transformation.
Now, agrarian transformation means that in this space where we live in rural areas we must change the way in which we do things, the pattern. We must change the way we manage things, the economy, the lives of our people, the way the community works in order for it to survive, what legacy we want to leave for our children, great, great grandchildren and so on. How do we want to live and how do we want other people to see us for what we are and who we are?
But more importantly, how do we change the way in which we own the resources in our hands? Now, when we say “in our hands”, we might not be carrying it in our hands like that, but at our disposal, even at our disposal if we talk about the mineral wealth under the soil or in the soil, however you say it in English, what is there underground where you live? It is at your disposal, but it is not at your disposal. How do we change that kind of relationship or that set of relationships? I will use relationship, not relations for a while. How do we change the relationship that exists amongst us, such that the relations now, the pattern of ownership now of that which constitutes wealth
where we live? How do we ensure that we, in the manner in which we conduct our lives amongst ourselves, influences the way in which control is exercised over the things that constitute wealth where we live? Am I making myself clear?
This is what it says here, because this point relates to the point I was making that says when you come from extreme oppression and you get into contact with wealth creating assets, you grab for yourself and even forget your family, but now we are saying let us change that thing and say how first of all do we constitute ourselves? How do we organise ourselves in this communal area, which belongs to us, in such a way that all of us benefit from the riches of this land, which we own together? Because if you don’t start by understanding how you behave towards one another instead of each one for himself or herself and the devil for all of us, that we then say let’s kill the devil so that we can live together in peace and manage and own these resources as our own together.
That is what is said by this agrarian transformation. It says rapid and fundamental change, rapid. The reason change doesn’t happen quickly and faster is because we don’t have that communality amongst ourselves. We compete and we fight and we do all sorts of things and then transformation does not take place at all. Poverty deepens. Hardship deepens, because we don’t understand one another. We don’t want to find one another so that all of us could share. Those who are biblical, they know if you don’t share, you lose it. If you share it, it multiplies.
Now, that is what we are talking about here. If you want it for yourself only, you lose it. If you share it, it multiplies. It says a rapid and fundamental change in the relations, meaning systems and patterns of ownership and control of land, livestock, cropping and community. Community, I start with it when I talk about how do we work together? How do we work together as brothers and sisters and friends, because now this thing of wealth when it comes to you, just forget about your family. I’ve said that. This time we want to say let’s come together. Let’s organise ourselves properly.
So, the CPA is fundamental. You are going to see the next side. You are going to see this thing. That’s why I’m emphasising it here. It’s because when we come to it, you are going to see exactly yourselves, why it is important for us to find one another so that we don’t fight one another and delay this transformation we are talking about.
Number four, or is it number five? Number five, thanks for counting for me – I hope Elton will be doing the counting. Why do we say must find one another? Because all of us, all of us we boast about something called ubuntu. We say ubuntu, ubuntu, ubuntu. What does it mean? Is it just a story? I listened to the people of District 6. Is there somebody from District 6 here? No. Yes, is there someone? I listened to them last Saturday. They say we want to go back to District 6 so that we can become once more who we were. Do you hear them?
Where we are now, they say , our lives are run by gangsters and gangsterism, but in District 6, yes, not everything was well, but we were who we were. Noone went to bed on an empty stomach. That’s what they are saying. That’s who we were.
That’s what they are saying. They say when we go back there, we want to be who we were before we were removed from there. That’s the people of District 6.
So, they are not here. They don’t hear us. If they are here, let’s pretend they don’t hear us. We are talking about them. So, this thing called ubuntu is something that we must live. We must live that thing and those who are weaker amongst us must experience it, those who are weaker amongst us, because this thing called ubuntu is not about the most powerful in society. It’s about the weakest so that when we are judged to be people of the people, it would be because we who hold positions in the CPAs and government and anything, those who are weaker matter most. Ubuntu – that’s what it is about.Just because one is a woman, it doesn’t mean that when her husband dies, she loses and treated badly. I mean, these are things that come through. Just because today we also have
child headed households, because death comes and children lose their parents and then you have children left alone to fend for themselves. Just because the parents are gone, why is it that the children don’t have other parents? That’s what Ubuntu means. That’s what it means.
So, we must take responsibility over ourselves. We are free as a nation, but a nation which does not recognise that, is itself not free. It is forever going to be a small one amongst nations and become a small boy amongst the rest of the nations, just a dwarf. We become dwarfs. We must, particularly in the communal areas, in the rural areas, that’s where this thing called ubuntu is supposed to reside, because in the township people starve a lot. They have no land. They have nothing. They starve. They just steal. They steal to live.
This is about all of us. This is the agrarian transformation system. All of us are here. When you discuss in your commissions, you will be guided. You will look at this. You will see livestock here. You will see land here. You will see the community. You will see cropping. You will see everything here that needs to be done..
This is you. This is you, change. That is point number five, change. Remember, I said to you these things were drummed into my mind last night. Don’t ask me where I’m reading. I’m reading nowhere. They were drummed into my head last night by that man and the team here. They can be very cruel sometimes. You see this wheel. This is another wheel, but this one is for you and it’s about the things I’ve been talking about. It’s for you.
The CPA tenure model – they can’t remember, we are busy. Remember, some of you colleagues were part of the previous meetings I’m sure, looking at the size of the house here. We had a green paper on land reform, which was approved by Cabinet. It’s there now. It’s guiding us. We then established five work streams. The one work stream was dealing with the four tier land tenure system. How do we manage and own land? We proposed that we must not sell State land. We must lease it out. In other words, the State acquires it and leases it out now.
Many people say no, no, no, no, the State shouldn’t own land. It shouldn’t own land at all. They must give the land to those people who they are leasing out to. You heard the debate. No, we want ownership and I’ve heard other people there, out there, particularly those who own the wealth of the country saying no, government has no business to own land. It must give the land to people. Give the titles to people. You’ve heard that story and some of you have said it too.
Let me tell you something. When the DG submitted a report last year to Parliament about the CPAs, 39 of South Africa’s CPAs had sold the land without even going to the people. That committee, perhaps even in that committee it might be only one person who is dominating there. They sold 39. 39 of them sold. 39 CPAs sold the land, because they’ve got titles and the poor people out there don’t understand that.
Probably people didn’t know that. Some of them might be shocked even today and say, oh, is it us, could it be ours, could it be ours, because they don’t know. They still think the land belongs to them. It’s gone.
Secondly, because they’ve got titles, yes, because once you have your title, you say get away. I’ve got the title. I will go to the bank and say to the bank, because you’ve become a big person now. Remember, I said to you if you were suppressed for many years, once you get a little bit of window opening, you will push that, boom, you may even break your ribs or your collarbone pushing, just throwing yourself into this small opening in the window and break your neck and even die.
When we came in 2009, we found out that in fact there are many farmers who were given land by the State and title, who went to the commercial bank, went to the Land Bank. They could not service the loans and the lands were taken back. You know that. You know that yourselves. Now we had to take the money from our budget then, R208 million, and put a guarantee with the Land Bank to save some of you who sold the land ... I mean, rather who could not service your loans. Now you want the State to sell to give you the title. I want the title. . Somebody wants the title behind you, some of you. It’s not really you.
I will give you a small example. We’ve got a very successful recap programme in the Free State. Some of the people there are old. They are old and they want to buy a Mercedes Benz. I asked them, where is your son? Hey, he’s in a township. He’s in the township. He is not saying on the farm.
He’s in the township. Have you got a licence old man? No, my son will drive for me. Do you hear this? My son will drive for me. The old man doesn’t want a Benz. It’s the son who wants the Benz. So, there is always a force behind you when we sit here and we listen and we say, oh, by the way, these guys are poor people. There is always somebody there who is pushing you through the window. You crash, because they are in a hurry.
They want the wealth you are trying to create for your children and your grandchildren, because you are old already. Looking at you here, you are old. If we were to say all those who are 50 this side, you will find the majority of you this side, the minority this side and you have this force of these youngsters who want the car with the wheel at the back. They are always watching your income. They say, okay, he is making enough money I can ask him to buy a Benz now. That’s what they do with the recap as well.
So, the State will keep the land and lease it out to you on a long-term basis, a long lease. We will give you a minimum of 30 years. Judging by the age now, you will be gone when the lease ends. So, why do you complain when you can go to the bank with the long lease and say I want this and that? But that would not go, because the bank would look at it and say, okay, it’s a lease, it’s a reasonable lease, what are you farming on?
I’m farming on this and this and they say fine, we’ll give you this, but they will help us now control you. But you have what you want. So, what do you want the title for when you can get everything you want on a long lease?
So, the State will lease the land at least until we stabilise the land market in the country, because we don’t know ... we are not managing it. It’s so unstable. We are not managing it as the State, as we should. Don’t worry about people who are talking about those who own everything. Don’t worry about them. You own nothing. Don’t worry. You own nothing. Now we are beginning a process of making you own your land, the wealth of your country. That’s what we are trying to do. Don’t worry about them. We don’t worry. When they say all the things they say, we know it’s because they are protecting their own interests. So, don’t worry about them. Just focus. It’s your State. You are participating now. That’s why you are here.
The second one we said privately owned land and we said freehold, but with limited extent. giants and dwarfs in ownership of land. No, either we are all dwarfs or all giants or something between the two. That’s what it is supposed to do.. It has no colour, this one. It has no colour, because we are thinking about our country moving forward.
So, we have agro economists. We asked them. Oh, can you use your knowledge to help us determine if we are talking about a large scale farmer on game or whatever commodity, using whatever variables which they use in economics, large scale commercial, medium scale commercial, small scale commercial that should be viable and profitable for the farmer, given those variables and commodities. We say to them help us guys. You have the knowledge.
Well, they come in and they say, well, you guys are going against international trends. International trends are saying big is beautiful. Big is right. Big is right. Small is no good. They started small themselves and they accumulated and accumulated over years, some of them centuries, because it was their great, great grandfathers, never mothers.
Today they are telling us because they themselves control, they say no, big is beautiful and we all run for that, no, no, we want big. We also want it. We want big. We want big.
What have you got? You’ve got nothing. How can you say you want to go to the sun just because somebody said aim for the sun and then you fall on the moon? No, this is land. This is land. Let us focus.
The principle of deracialising the economy, deracialising the rural economy in particular in our case, it means that in terms of our Constitution, Section 25(3), it says it has a principle of just and equitable, the just and equitable principle in the redistribution of land. Just and equitable meaning it is a historical context that must help you to understand why we behave in this way in redistributing the land. We are saying from a strategic point of view it is growth through redistribution.
Those who say big is beautiful, they are saying it’s redistribution through growth and then we are told every day that the growth is going down, meaning redistribution goes down. We will never redistribute, because we have no growth in the economy. Can’t you see this? That it is wrong logic in a society which is transforming, is changing, is redistributing, is actually trying to share the wealth according to the demographics of the country. Can’t you see this is wrong?
We want growth through redistribution. If you keep it, it dies or you lose it. If you share it, it multiplies. Remember, that’s what we are saying here. So, when we say limited extent, we mean just that. We set the threshold above that. We use the principle of just and equitable to then acquire the land from those who have it and redistribute it amongst those who don’t have it. That’s what government is dealing with. That’s what the government is doing, the government of South Africa. That’s what we are working for.
That’s why on Wednesday you read it in the paper. You heard it on the radio yesterday. It says government approved the Office of the Valuer General. You heard that on radio. You read it in today’s newspaper. I saw it too in the Business Day, probably yesterday as well, because Minister Collins Chabane was talking yesterday, ja. I read it this morning in the Business Day.
The Office of the Valuer-General has been approved by Cabinet. It is the office. It doesn’t exist in South Africa today.
It’s never been there. It’s the first time. It will act in the interest of the State so that the State can acquire land through the principle of just and equitable in the Constitution of our land so that the State, when it wants to buy land for restitution, it does not use the market based willing buyer/willing seller principle. It uses the just and equitable principle in the Constitution of our land.
So, the second one, this one, freehold with limited extent means this is what we agree small scale is for anybody to be profitable and viable. Anything above that the State buys on the basis of the just and equitable principle and redistribute it to the people. That’s what it means.
The third one is land owned by foreign nationals in South Africa. It’s the same, freehold with limited extent. However, for people who are foreign nationals, there is an added thing, obligations and conditions, because we are here trying to redistribute land and also trying to empower black people.
They’ve got the markets elsewhere, da-da-da, then they come and in any case they buy land, they convert it to game.
Remember, they belong to the big is beautiful, because they come here, they buy land, several funds, one, two, three, ten, around an area and they pay these guys and they put it together and they put game there. They go home. They come for holidays. They shoot. They come here for a trophy. They shoot game. They just want the head. They go away with the horns of the kudu. We are hungry here. The people who are helping to hunt are hungry, but these guys, all they want is the trophy, the kudu horns. They go home with it. Once they come here, fine, we are happy with that. We like that, because they bring here foreign exchange and so on, but we love our people even more. We love our ancestors even more, because they owned the land.
So, we are saying then again it’s privately owned with limited extent. Do you remember? If I was somebody who has land, I was going to say fine, I hear the government. The threshold is and then I have got more. I will take him to be my partner. He owns the rest and then government and he will say I don’t want to fight this government. It’s very fair. In other words, they too will have to contribute to that.
The last one, the fourth one is communal land. We say communal land tenure is communal land with institutionalised youth rights. Now, look at one, two, three, four up to eight and then above the outside that you have cropping, blah-blah-blah, all the things, the business things. These ones you can see there it says household sector, because you in the rural areas are not in the communal land which you acquired, which were farms. We were tenants there and you got the land. You don’t have that much. You tried to do that. Some people are still leaving the townships and the land is staying on its own there, yet they claim. They say we want land. They are still staying in the townships. They haven’t gone back to the land.
Most of the land is unproductive, because people are sitting in the townships. . We must end that. We must force them. If they get land because of food security, the third principle, sustained production, discipline for food security. So, we must force everybody to go to the land if they got land from the State. They can’t say , we just needed it for pride. No, there is no such a thing here. It’s gone. Daardie tyd is verby. It’s gone.
You want land, because you want to produce. We want national food sovereignty so that we don’t depend on other countries and become boys to other countries or dwarfs to other countries. We make other countries giants. We want to keep ourselves as dwarfs. No, produce on the land so that you are free from manipulation by other countries who are bigger than us or they think they are bigger than us. It starts there.
So household number one, number two, number three – we want to give them. Remember, this is a communally owned land. There is one title. but in here you want to have security of each household so that nobody messes up with the woman whose husband dies. We want to protect the most vulnerable in society here, the children who are left parentless for whatever reason. They must be secured, but also we want to make sure that when they too, are there, they are a solid household, they want to use that title as collateral in the bank. They can do that to educate their children to build whatever they want to do, to run businesses. They can do that, but we must protect that land, because that is commonly owned land, but we must facilitate progress, economic progress for each and every household there so that they are able to say we’ve got wealth.
Wealth is not just money. It’s land, amongst other things. It’s property. So, institutionalise youth rights. Thapelo was talking about it. You don’t have to know Thapelo. He is just somewhere here, sitting here. Thapelo was saying you know what we need to do? Well, I’m talking about the guys who gave me the mandate here. Thapelo said, you know what we need to do? You have these, what they call sectional titles where you have these houses that are socially owned. You see these houses. You see these things. He said we need to have a model like that, sectional titles in the communal land to protect those households so that forever they will be there. They will own that land, unless they mess up and when they mess up, the first right of refusal is the community members. They can’t just sell to anybody. If they want to go to the township, they are tired of the land, fine, they say okay, this was your home, but no, no, no, I’ve got time for this thing. Now I’m a town boy. I’m a town fellow. Fine, you can’t bring somebody there. You must start with us, because we must first be the ones to refuse to buy it.
So, the CPA now, which are the people, through the community, they negotiate. They say okay, okay, we’ll buy it.
Fine, when you buy it, you increase so that you are able in that box – you see the box that says managed land allocation and use against agreed CPA plan. Remember, this is a community managing that kind of thing to say on behalf of the rest, to say no, no, no, sell to us first. If we can’t buy it, sell to the government first, because when government buys it, it will buy it for us. It will add to our land.
To protect that land – that is what we want to do. That is communal tenure. Whether in that box it would be in the rural area where you have traditional leaders, we have proposed traditional councils who will play that role on behalf of the rest, because traditional council will hold titles on behalf of the people, but all of the rest will be there in the name of the people.
So, we are saying the CPA, we say the outer boundary, single title, title holder, Communal Property Association, the whole, not the committee, but the management of that land on behalf of the rest is the committee. It says roles of the CPA committee. It says adjudication of disputes on allocation and use within the community.
Two – reference point, because they will be keeping the records they’ve struck during the struggling for the land. They kept the records. They can do that so that they can be a reference point. People can always refer to them and say look, we have a problem there, we want to do this, you know, my child now has come of age; I want more land and so on and so on. They can negotiate that and then come to the rest. How do they come to the rest?
That accountability is there, because once a quarter, this one we will enforce in law so that if you fail as a CPA committee to do it, there would be punishment for it. Once a quarter the CPA committee must have a meeting of the CPA and the quorum will not be determined in terms of headcount.
The quorum will be determined in terms of the households that constitute the CPA so that you don’t say, listen, we had 50 plus
1. We had 50 plus 1 and 50 plus 1 was constituted by a third of those household, but each one of the households has got people.
We made sure they are there, because they support you. The other one has got 17 people. You made sure. So, you have three, you have one of three households instead of two of three households to constitute your majority and quorum so that the decisions you take there are decisions, which will be legitimate. They will have the support of the majority of the people who constitute the CPA so that even then as households if they don’t comply, they can’t go to court tomorrow. You will say let’s go to the first quarter meeting. You were not there. We wrote to you. We did this to call you to a meeting. You did not come. You didn’t even submit an apology or you submitted an apology. We took a decision in terms of the regulations or the rules that govern the CPA. That’s accountability now, accountability both sides, households on the one hand and the committee of the CPA on the other.
So, here in this box, and it says number four, managed land allocation and use against agreed CPA plan, the CPA plan and rules, because the committee will not work without rules.
You are going to, this weekend, today and tomorrow, make sure that you give substance to this box. You have accumulated experience now. You know exactly what rules would fit an accountable committee of the Communal Property Association.
This is the tenure system we are introducing for CPAs and for communities, rural communities where you have traditional institutions. Where you have CPAs there, you will have traditional councils so that we can have certainty in the manner in which we manage the land.
The last part, of the wheel is the outer one. It says grazing, cropping, forestry, mining, infrastructure, tourism, manufacturing, etc. You must discuss that. That is now the point I was making earlier on about wealth. How do you share that wealth among yourselves and between yourselves and anyone who wants to make business on your land? That’s the tenure system. We are talking the transformation of rural economy so that it benefits the people who own the land there, so that people don’t have to go and create problems in the urban areas where they go there and build shacks because they are hungry, when there is wealth where they run away from, but they can’t share from that wealth.
You, today and tomorrow, must discuss how you are going to share that wealth among yourselves and with people who want to come and make business where you live, because I know in the Eastern Cape there is the dairy industry which is a fledgling there. I’m sure we can talk about the others, but I’m talking about the dairy industry, because it’s a very good example. You may have seen as we went to Qumanco the other day with the president with, Masibambisane initiative.
The President was leading us in a green suit, blah-blah-blah.
You know the President can dance. So, he was there. We were harvesting, I think it’s 178 hectares of land, yes, probably somebody is here from that place, 178 hectares of land, Qumanco, that village and we still asked where is this land this man is going to sell?.
Some people were asking, all of us, we were trying to check, where is the market? You see the dynamic now, the value chain, blah-blah-blah, because the money is not made where you actually plough the mealies and sell it. No, no, it’s made through the value chain, the various stages of processing that. At the end it goes to the consumer. Somebody is making the money, not you.
So, until you control that value chain, you don’t have money. So, we listened to them. They said no, no, no, this maize has already been bought, just on the other side, just over here, the same area, because over here we as the department had recapitalised the whole dairy infrastructure there. So, there is a dairy there and that community got into a partnership together with us, with Amahlelo.
Amahlelo came with 600 dairy cows. They are smiling. So, they bought all this maize here. Do you see now?
They bought all this maize here. Yet the people who grew this maize, they’ve also got a share there in the dairy. Why can’t we do it here where we live? That’s what I’m talking about. That’s a communal area. And then we said listen guys, that’s why, how do you share, because this is an equity share, the share equity scheme rather? They say no, no, no, no we own the land. We own the infrastructure. You helped us. Thank you very much for recapitalising, because we own the infrastructure and the land. So, we own 51% of the joint venture. Listen to that, hey?
This is the dairy industry. We own 51% of the joint venture. They own 49%. Why can’t we do it in mining? Why can’t we do it in forestry? It’s because we are not organised. Do you remember the first point, because we are not organised. It’s each one for himself or herself and the rest for the devil.
That’s why you are here. Let’s kill the devil. Let’s hold one another’s arms. There was a song in the past. I mean, I don’t know where it’s gone now. I can’t sing, please. I will just say it says blah-blah-blah. There were songs like that. I can’t sing. If I was able to sing, I was going to sing that song.
Unfortunately I can’t, sorry for that, but the point is that what happened to that? What happened to that? Just because now we are eating, there is no comrade. We are turning our backs on your comrades, because we are eating. I want to eat first.
No, there are people whom we must honour. There are people who got land through restitution. They sat here like you are sitting here and they said to me and my team here we want you to ask government to reopen the lodgement of claims, because you and your department, your research was poor.
Your verification was poor. You left out many people who were removed with us. We claimed. They did not claim. We can’t enjoy the fruits, because we are only ourselves enjoying it, when we know we were not alone when we were removed.
There they are outside. Please reopen and get them in so that we can enjoy this thing together. We honour those people. That’s what we want. That’s what we want here, around here, this wheel.
How do we share amongst ourselves first? What is the formula and then what do we say to them when they come and they want to share with our wealth, because we want them to come? This thing of saying we want investors, why can’t you?
In other words, the CPA is a political structure. Why don’t we have a development structure or a business structure that says on our behalf? What form will that be?
That’s what they are discussing in District 6. They say a special purpose vehicle. What is a special purpose vehicle? Blah-blah-blah, what is a business plan? They are dealing with those things. How do we ensure that we incorporate everybody? Because we said to them it’s your thing deal with it?
Deal with it, because now they are coming back and we say here is a social integration task team. We set up this thing so that they can say now that we are going back, how are we going to live there?
But fortunately you are there already, yourselves. You are there. How do we live together so that together we can share in the wealth of this land, which we own together? At the moment you are dwarfs. Somebody is a giant and they are growing. The giants are getting bigger and bigger. The dwarfs are getting shorter and shorter, because we don’t deal with this thing. That’s why you are here.
I’m saying in the dairy industry there, I went to Tsitsikamma two weeks or just about a month ago. It’s exactly the same. The people are happy there. They had been removed and they are back there. Government bought the land. They are back there. We built a dairy structure for them there. It’s big. They are milking there. They want more cows, of course. They are milking there, but I asked them what is your share? They say we own 51%, they own 48%, because they bring the cows and they look after the cows. We look after the infrastructure. It’s our infrastructure. Thanks for recapitalising it, government.
That’s what we want to do here in your communal areas. That’s what the communal tenure system is about. So, that’s what it is about. Where they say forestry, we say fine, we own the land, you own the business. Our minimum is 51%. Yours is 49. Your maximum is 49%. Remember, listen carefully.
Our minimum is 51%. Your maximum is 49%. That’s what it means so that if then you negotiate, you start ... if you negotiate and they say hey, hey, hey, you start from 51%, but you can never go down below 50%, oh my God, never. 51% is your minimum. 40% is their maximum. That’s why you are here. I wish you good luck, thank you very much.
