07 November 2023
By: Lebogang Mashala
The Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, Judith Tshabalala, recently visited the Kakamas and Upington areas of the Northern Cape to meet commercial and developing vineyard farmers. She called on the provincial government and municipalities to assist farmers with challenges such as poor service delivery and lack of infrastructure.
Tshabalala specifically called on the Dawid Kruiper and Kai !Garib municipalities to work with national and provincial government structures to provide aid to these farmers.
Five historically disadvantaged individual (HDI) or black economic empowerment (BEE) projects were set up in Kakamas to produce grapes, and they were allocated a total of 936 hectares of water use permits.
As the custodian of national water resources, the Department of Water and Sanitation has supported local farmers and the HDI projects with its water allocation reform programme. This initiative aims to ensure limited water resources are shared equitably.
However, most of the HDI projects have shut down due to poor service delivery by municipalities and a lack of sufficient skills support. Three of the projects, which received 261ha of water use rights, were productive when the government bought them and handed them over to the new HDI owners. Two produced export table grapes and the third produced wine grapes for local cellars. There is now no production at any of the HDI projects.
Tshabalala urged the provincial government and municipalities to work together to ensure HDI projects take off and become successful for the benefit of local economic growth. She said this is vital for the government’s economic recovery plan.
Xolani Zwane, the department’s deputy director-general responsible for compliance, monitoring and evaluation, said the department is working on a revised memorandum of understanding with the Northern Cape Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development and Land Reform. It will examine the water pricing strategy for HDI projects in the area and strengthen the relationship between the two departments.
