The HSRC was of a view that, the budget as outlined in the 2009 MTBPS is constraining given the amount of work that the department had to embark upon. Out of the 18 Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) projects that had been initiated by the former Department of Land Affairs, only two of them are still in place. Others have collapsed and the land was sold back to its original white owners. The HSRC noted that, for the Department of Rural Development to successfully carry out its mandate, more funding and human resources are required. The programmatic budget structure of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform has been condensed from 7 to 5 programmes to reflect the new rural development mandate. The Department requested an additional budget of R18.3 billion over the medium term. Rural Development and Restitution programmes together requested R16.5 billion (90 per cent) of the Departments total request. There is no baseline budget over the medium term for the rural development programme and the department indicated that the indicative baseline for the Restitution over the MTEF (R2.2 billion) is less than the 2007/08 level. The Department of Water Affairs (DWA) indicated that it will support rural development through investing in water resource infrastructure in rural areas to make water available for economic growth and development. Furthermore, the Department of Water Affairs intends giving employment preferences to the people from rural areas where DWA project exists.