Parliament, Saturday, 23 July 2022 – A delegation of the joint committee of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour started its three-day visit to the Western Cape in De Doorns yesterday. The visit follows
National Assembly resolution adopted in 2020 calling for the two committees to embark on a joint oversight programme to assess the impact of legislation and explore opportunities for legislative review aimed at improving the living conditions of farm workers, farm dwellers and tenants.
The delegation heard from Ubuntu Rural Women and Youth Movement, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), that 19 years after resolutions contained in the 2003 Report of the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) on the progress made in terms of Land Tenure Security, Safety and Labour Relations in Farming Communications, that farm workers and farm dwellers are still living under inhuman conditions on the farms in the Western Cape.
The NGO asked the HRC about the period in which farm workers must wait to get security of tenure. The delegation heard that Illegal evictions are still going on, on the farms in spite of the legislation protecting tenure security. The delegation heard that farm workers are still subjected to conditions that include that their children must leave the farm when they reach 18 years old or pay R590 to be allowed to live on the farm.
The Women on Farms Project informed the delegation that women working on farms are still subjected to harsh conditions. Women farm workers like their husbands are exposed to harmful and toxic pesticides that are used by farmers to spray their animals and plants. The Women on Farms Project told the delegation that gender-based-violence is common on the farms.
The delegation heard that there is a general lack of compliance with labour legislation by farmers in the farming sector in the Western Cape. It heard that in 2021 about 300 farm workers were retrenched in one farm alone. The stakeholders called for the intervention of Parliament in the problem of the employment of undocumented foreign nationals in the Western Cape by farmers. They said the Department of Employment and Labour does not conduct regular inspections on farms.
On the claim by the stakeholders that the Commission for the Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration takes the whole year to finalise cases, the Commission told the delegation that it received 1310 complaints in the agriculture sector alone. It also told the delegation that it has a very limited number of staff as it received very limited budget from National Treasury in the last financial years.
The delegation also heard that farm workers and farm dwellers in the Western Cape struggle to get electricity, water and sanitation. It heard that farm workers are living in uninhabitable houses. One of the women farm workers who also participated in the meeting of the stakeholders told the delegation that even farm schools are not safe for their children.
The delegation heard that 27 years after the dawn of democracy in South Africa, farm workers are still not entitled to pension, provident fund and medical aid benefits. It heard that there are equity share schemes that are supposed to benefit farm workers in the event of death, but those schemes are riddled by corruption as a result families of farm workers do not benefit from them when their relatives die. The delegation heard that farm workers are told that they are members of these schemes theoretically but don’t get dividends from them.
The leader of the delegation, Ms Patricia Mahlo, told farm workers and farm dwellers who participated in the meeting to record their complaints to the officials of the relevant government departments. She said the departments will report to the joint committee in writing about their interventions in dealing with all those complaints.
The delegation will today visit Soetendal farm in Wellington and Marlenique farm in Simondium. After the visits to the farms, the delegation will from 15:00 to 17:00 hold a public hearing with farming communities at Millennium Hal in Pniel in the Stellenbosch Local Municipality in the Cape Winelands District Municipality.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE LEADER OF THE DELEGATION, MS PATRICIA MAHLO.
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