Land reform beneficiaries who have not attempted to make their new farms profitable will lose their ownership rights.

As of next month, Limpopo’s agriculture department will start deregistering lazy or corrupt beneficiaries at 71 farms worth over R100-million.

“Government is aware that these farms have not been producing optimally due to a number of problems,” said provincial agriculture spokesperson Segoati Mahlangu.

“We have undertaken this initiative because we believe that if we have committed people, the projects can succeed.”

The farms were awarded to land claimants as part of the Settlement Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG) between 1994 and 2002.

Most of these projects have collapsed because funds were embezzled, managers overpaid themselves and, in some instances, the farms were used as collateral for individuals’ private businesses and ended up being sold by financial institutions.

Mr Mahlangu said the department wanted to restructure the projects so that they became more profitable.

Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza replaced SLAG with the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) programme in 2002. However, land activists have complained that poor, landless people cannot benefit from LRAD because they are required to contribute a minimum amount of money in order for government to buy them land. However, Mr Mahlangu said it was not all doom and gloom.

He said that the 25 000-hectare Gillimberg citrus project in Mokopane was making a profit from exports. More than 700 families are beneficiaries of this project.

In 2001, the R19 million farm was exporting 600 000 boxes of citrus a year to the Middle East, Russia and the United States of America. – BuaNews