Minister Zokwana is failing rural communities
The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) is failing rural communities by not providing the agricultural support needed to ensure that our country has food security in the future.
As the world celebrates World Food Day today, it has become very clear that the ANC-led government has no clear strategy in place to ensure that communities become food secure.
I will write to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, Ms Semenya, to request that she summon the Minister before the Committee so that he can explain his department’s poor performance and what plans he has in place to ensure that this consistent underperformance is reversed.
According to a report by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPE), 11.5% of households in South Africa were vulnerable to hunger in 2011. By 2014, this proportion decreased to 11.4%, meaning very little headway had been made to ensure that more households were not vulnerable to hunger. A report by OXFAM calculated the numbers of people facing hunger in South Africa is estimated at roughly 13 million people.
These are shocking figures, especially in a country where food security is not a given. The reasons for this slow progress became apparent during an interrogation of the Annual Report of DAFF this week:
DAFF missed its target for total hectares of land cultivated for food production in communal areas and land reform projects by 35%. Of the 65% of the hectares used for food production in these areas, only 3% of it was cultivated according to the agreed standard;
The DAFF budget has been cut by R309 million. This is a direct result of constant underspending by DAFF; and
DAFF spent R20.5 million on consultants, with very few tangible results.
Clearly underperformance by DAFF is directly impacting on the ability of our country to produce sufficient food. The buck of this poor performance must stop at the door of Minister Zokwana. The Auditor General (AG) agrees with this and stated that the Minister did not show leadership, especially with regards to monitoring the performance of his department which amounts to gross negligence.
The Democratic Alliance believes that economic growth is a key factor for reducing hunger. Enhancing the productivity of the land and therefore the incomes of smallholder family farmers is vital to this objective. Clearly DAFF is failing in this regard and has dire consequences for the 13 million South Africans going hungry.
Issued by Annette Steyn, DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries, 16 October 2015
