adminJOHANNESBURG — SOUTH Africa’s majority black farm workers, among them those that in the food processing and manufacturing industries are set to unveil their strategy to pressure the government to embark on the fast track land redistribution in the country, CAJ News can reveal.
The move follows repeated calls by government without success to request the minority whites to share the precious resource on a willing-buyer-willing-seller concept, but the whites refused to budge.
Two powerful workers unions, Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) will on Thursday publicly unveil what they call “detailed Programme of Action (PoA)”, which is aimed at exerting pressure to the African National Congress (ANC) led government to fast-tracking of land redistribution in the country.
NUMSA general secretary Irvin Jim and FAWO deputy general secretary Moleko Phakedi will address members of the media at Numsa Head Office as they unveil their fast track land redistribution strategy.
NUMSA spokesman, Castro Ngobese,the fast track land redistribution programme was the only way to ensure equitable land imbalances in South Africa.
“The purpose of the press conference is to publicly unveil a detailed Programme of Action (PoA) that NUMSA and FAWU will undertake to exert pressure that will lead to fast-tracking of land redistribution in the country.
“Both NUMSA and FAWU have a direct interest in agrarian transformation in South Africa, since FAWU organizes workers in farms, agro-processing and food production sectors; while NUMSA organizes workers in factories that manufacture agricultural implements,” said Ngobese in a statement sent to CAJ News.
He said on 26 May 2013, the national leadership of FAWU and that of the NUMSA held a bilateral meeting where both unions agreed in principle to use the centenary of the 1913 Native Land Act to launch a campaign aimed at fast-tracking land redistribution in the country.
Ngobese said further to the bilateral between the two workers unions, on
08-09 June 2013, joint NUMSA/FAWU Workshops on Land and Agrarian Transformation were held across South Africa to prepare for the National Day of Action and to endorse the joint campaign by the two unions.
The renewed pressure by the two workers’ unions to demand equitable land redistribution follows successful land ownership in Zimbabwe where black farmers are beginning to reap results of the widely condemned fast track land redistribution programme.
This year alone, Zimbabwe’s black tobacco farmers produced the tobacco worth more than $800 million (about R7.2 billion) from the sales of the crop.
Despite the fact that the Zimbabwe black farmers were not getting any funding from the international community, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the Ministry of Finance under Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the new land owners defied all odds and produced well above board, making agriculture the country’s top foreign currency earner. — CAJ News
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