Cabinet gives thumbs up to ANC's plan to develop rural communities
August 14, 2009
By Donwald Pressly
The cabinet has approved a comprehensive rural development programme that aims to co-ordinate state support for the upliftment of rural communities.
Government spokesman Themba Maseko said President Jacob Zuma would showcase a pilot project in Giyani, Limpopo, on Monday.
The programme emerges from a policy position taken at the ANC Polokwane conference. It focuses on expanding the number of rural jobs and improving the lives of rural people through co-ordinated action by the government in collaboration with rural communities.
It is being driven by Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti, who told Parliament recently that the support of white farmers by the apartheid government was instructive.
These farmers had set up commercial ventures with the help of a "massive" programme of subsidies, grants and aid. They were also cushioned by tax relief and horticultural advice, he noted.
While he did not indicate that such measures would be used for emerging black farmers, he said the programme would be based on social cohesion and development.
However, he emphasised that it was "not another" social security programme.
After the Giyani pilot, Nkwinti said the programme would be "rolled out" to the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and North West.
At Riemvasmaak in the Northern Cape, 46 000ha of land would be provided to communities through the land restitution process.
While Maseko said that the programme involved agrarian transformation, improved land reform and strategic investments in economic and social infrastructure, Nkwinti pledged that for every community plan and every land reform project "we will ensure that sufficient water is secured for that purpose and there is optimal use of our natural resources". - Donwald Pressly
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