Stephan Hofstatter
22 October 2009
Johannesburg — AGRICULTURAL union AgriSA is accusing the government of using water rights allocations to force farmers to exceed black economic empowerment (BEE) targets set by the Department of Trade and Industry and the AgriBEE charter.
The issue sparked a heated exchange during the inaugural meeting of the AgriBEE charter council in Pretoria this week, officials who attended said yesterday.
In line with the department's empowerment codes of good practice, the AgriBEE charter -- gazetted last year after three years of negotiations -- exempts farms with a turnover of less than R5m a year from empowerment targets, including on land ownership, equity, procurement and management. Most of SA's 40000 white commercial farmers fall below the threshold, and they have been accused of being against transformation by resisting attempts to reduce it. Farmers argue it is unfair to single them out .
But the threshold clearly conflicts with the government's broader land and water reform objectives, which seek to reverse the effect of racist restrictions under apartheid.
Since 2007 the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs had rejected 134 applications by white farmers for water rights transfers for failing to comply with National Water Act empowerment provisions, says AgriSA. Many fell below the R5m threshold.
Transfers take place when farmers with existing allocations use water more efficiently and to trade the surplus with neighbours or use it to expand production. The freeze on allocations to white farmers had taken 2000ha of irrigable land out of production and resulted in 2500 job losses a year, while 97000ha available to black irrigation farmers remained unused, the union said.
But water affairs deputy director- general Sipho Mahlangu said yesterday each application was assessed individually for compliance with Water Act provisions, including those on empowerment.
Farmers who believed they were exempt from these because their turnover was below R5m should appeal to the Water Tribunal, which is chaired by a high court judge, "so we can test this case legally".
Mahlangu denied his department was pushing the threshold. "I just supported a recommendation by the Department of Trade and Industry that we should critically interrogate i t. Then all hell broke loose."
Redress for past racial discrimination was just one factor the act required officials to take into account, AgriSA natural resources director Nic Opperman said. Others include strategic importance, socioeconomic effect and public interest.
Most of SA's 40000 white commercial farmers fall below the threshold, and they have been accused of being against transformation
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