The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform has consistently failed to demonstrate proper governance practices and as a result of this failure South Africa's Land Reform Programme has effectively stalled, leaving many land claimants and land owners in a state of perpetual uncertainty.
Even as some political leaders disingenuously try to peddle fear and hatred by claiming that the Land Reform Programme's failure can be blamed on a single race group or a clause in the Constitution, the facts speak clearly for themselves.
In the last few years, the department has been beset by problems. It has outstanding lawsuits against it to the value of over R500 million. It has a backlog of post-settlement support to land claimants amounting to over R3 billion. This for a department with a total budget of R8 billion!
Since the 2004-05 financial year, it has accrued R15 million in wasteful expenditure and R164 million in irregular expenditure. It has received qualified audit after qualified audit, and the Minister still refuses to release the vital Green Paper which will outline President Zuma's administration's envisaged direction for land reform.
In the department's latest annual report, the Auditor-General listed the department's failure once again to complete an audit of all state-owned land as one of the main reasons for his qualified opinion. In addition, he listed financial irregularities, mismanagement of land subsidies and inadequate internal management as matters of serious concern.
In addition to the failure to complete the audit, the Auditor-General further noted the following worrying financial irregularities: R53 million lost to the department through fraudulent activities and irregular and wasteful expenditure. In fact, the department is now being so badly managed that it is under investigation by the Special Investigation Unit, SIU. After six consecutive years of rampant mismanagement, failure to deliver on its own mandate and no discernable effort being made to improve on the status quo, no responsible member of this Parliament can be expected to hand this department an R8,1 billion blank cheque, knowing it will only likely deliver more of the same. The DA will not be supporting this Budget Vote. [Time expired.] [Applause.]