A woman at the forefront of land reform

Over the past 25 years, discussions about land have dominated headlines and households across South Africa. Some progress has been made in reinstating land to its rightful owners, and with this, a number of formations have been set up to ensure that beneficiaries have the right governing structures in place to manage their newly acquired assets.

Nester Mathebula (41) is the treasurer of Giba Communal Property Association (CPA), an entity representing about 417 land reform beneficiary households near Hazyview. The CPA was established in accordance with the Communal Property Association Act No 28 of 1996, which makes it mandatory for beneficiaries of a land reform programme who want to acquire, hold and manage land as a group, to set up legal entities and landholding institutions.

Mathebula forms part of the 13-person committee. The CPA is one of the few in the country with a greater representation of women within its structure – it has eight women and five men, a remarkable feat considering the marginal number of women participating in agriculture, particularly within the leadership structures of CPAs around the country.

As treasurer, Mathebula’s primary responsibilities entail preparing the CPA’s financial statements for the auditors’ review and making submissions to the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development regarding compliance. “I also present reports at our annual general and quarterly meetings. I quantify how much we have in our coffers and make recommendations on how we can reduce costs. One of the changes I have made is that in order to reduce sitting allowances for committee members, we should convene meetings when there is a pressing and urgent matter, and not simply repeat things that were discussed in previous meetings,” Mathebula explained.

Reflecting on her role as treasurer of the Giba CPA, Mathebula said, “One of the biggest challenges in this role is managing the diverse interests of community members and ensuring that people understand and follow the correct procedures.”

Mathebula shared that as a CPA committee member, one of her main responsibilities is ensuring that good governance principles are followed by the CPA. “Good governance requires you to have proper processes in place that ensure that CPAs comply with the CPA Act and uphold the principles of honesty and transparency.

We have tried to document some policies for incentives, so for example, when a person is going to get an incentive, the treasurer must check the accuracy of everything and file the supporting documents, and that is a big part of my role,” she said.

Mathebula, who has a diploma in internal auditing, stresses that good governance is critical to the success of land reform projects, and having the right people with the right skills in some of these roles is important to enable the success of the CPA.

According to the Vumelana Advisory Fund, which is a non-profit organisation that helps beneficiaries of the land reform programme put their land to profitable use by establishing commercially viable partnerships between communities and investors, CPAs with the ability to govern and administer their affairs effectively have the potential to contribute to economic development by creating jobs for members and reducing poverty, ensuring the restored land maintains its productivity and increases their ability to attract commercial partners.

The Giba community is historically part of the Matsebula nation, who arrived in the Hazyview area in about 1814 after being driven out of modern eSwatini. The community occupied the area which later became Burgers Hall farm and surrounding farms.

In the late 1990s and in 2003, members of the Giba community lodged a land claim and formed the Giba CPA, and their land was reinstated. In 2018 the CPA approached the Vumelana Advisory Fund to assist with identifying a commercial partner, and earlier this year entered into two lease agreements with a commercial partner.

Mathebula said the failure of certain land reform projects could be attributed to lack of adequate skills and support, pointing out that in some instances communities receive land, own it, but fail to operate on their farms, resulting from a lack of adequate skills and support. “In such cases, CPAs would tend to rely on income received from renting out the farm alone, but this does not necessarily bode well for job creation, skills transfer and the growth of the rural economy.”