Cape Town — Parliament has urged the government to allocate more money to agrarian reform, saying SA cannot afford to postpone this any longer and the lack of sufficient funding would compromise its development agenda.

The legislature's view was expressed in a report adopted by the House last week in response to the medium-term budget policy statement tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan last month.

The Treasury allocated R6,3bn to the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform this year, but this will fall short in addressing the pressing need for land and the infrastructural backlogs in rural areas.

The lack of funding has meant that the Land Claims Commission has not been able to honour at least R10bn in outstanding commitments to land owners and claimants.

Parliament's recommendations could see the Treasury adjusting the allocations made for agrarian reform when it tables the 2010-11 national budget in February, though this will be a hard task given the financial constraints imposed by the sharp decline in tax revenue.

If the Treasury ignores the views of the legislature, Parliament could use the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act to insist that its position be taken on board.

The bill, promulgated earlier this year, gives Parliament the power to make changes to the budget for the first time.

The call for greater emphasis on rural development, land restitution and land acquisition was made in a report compiled by the standing committee on finance and adopted by the National Assembly shortly before it went into recess for Christmas.

The committee based its view on submissions by departments and economists on the medium- term budget policy statement.

"Land is central to the implementation of government's comprehensive rural strategy and if resources are not prioritised for land reform programmes, the objectives ... might not be achieved," the report said.

Committee chairman Thaba Mufamadi said yesterday that agrarian reform had proceeded at a "snail's pace" since 1994 and had not had much effect because of competing priorities.

The Democratic Alliance's shadow rural development and land reform minister, Mpowele Swathe, called for a dramatic increase in funding for rural development, saying funds would have to be reassigned from other departments as rural development had been identified as a priority by President Jacob Zuma .

The budget proposals of the rural development and land reform department were "cut to the bone", MPs heard during hearings on the medium-term budget policy statement.

The department was told there was no new money forthcoming. Its request for an extra R18,3bn over three years had been slashed to R6,34bn, which was under discussion with the Treasury. By the end of the second quarter, 91% of this year's land restitution budget had been spent.

Business Day has also reported that the Land Claims Commission could not afford to honour at least R10bn in outstanding commitments to land owners and claimants, which could result in huge damages claims. The Treasury has rejected the commission's request for an extra R10,3bn for land restitution over the next three years. A proposal for 70% less (R3,1bn) is under discussion.

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti said recently the government was "obsessed" with achieving the redistribution of 30% of agricultural land from white to black hands because failure to address skewed land ownership patterns would result in polarisation and calamity.

However, so far the funds to achieve this have not been forthcoming and only 5% of land has been transferred, forcing the government to review the deadline of achieving 30% land redistribution by 2014.