Fight Against Land Bank Liquidation Syndicate

Statement by Dr Igor Scheurkogel MP – DA Member of the National Council of Provinces:

The DA has secured an opportunity to put the plight of affected farmers directly before the Board of Directors of the Land Bank, which sits from 29 to 31 July.

A full report will be presented to the Board providing on how legal representatives appointed on the Bank’s behalf liquidated farms without the Land Bank first proving its legal standing to do so.

The lending agreements at the heart of these cases were signed with agricultural credit intermediaries not with the Land Bank and in case after case the Land Bank has failed, when challenged in court, to produce the cession agreements on which its right to recover those debts depends.

The DA has been at the forefront of this fight since 2022, when our parliamentary questions in the National Council of Provinces by Wille Aucamp now the Minister of Agriculture got National Treasury to disclose, for the first time, the full schedule of attorneys, liquidators and auctioneers appointed in Land Bank liquidations.

That disclosure revealed a startling pattern that few law firms acting in majority of the Land Bank’s cases routed through selected intermediaries, and a small circle of liquidation companies receiving the majority of appointments frequently appointing themselves as the auctioneers of the very farms they were liquidating.

In none of the cases presented to the respective court cases these legal service providers could not provide proof that the National Treasury procurement processes were followed.

The DA has been visiting the affected farmer and in one of the farming company whose debt amounted to less than a third of the value of its assets was nonetheless liquidated, and assets worth some R14 million were auctioned off for roughly R6 million.

In another, a multi-generational farming group spanning tens of thousands of hectares was dismantled on the strength of ceded claims that were never proven. An independent report by Adams & Adams, delivered February 2024 to Land Bank under the title “Outrageous Liquidation Practices and Land Bank,” recorded allegations of unlawfully procured legal services, misrepresented legal standing, and intimidation, victimisation and abuse directed at farmers and their families.

That report fell on deaf ears. The liquidations continued with over 150 commercial farms lost, and thousands of farm workers and their families stripped of their income and livelihoods.

In June we raised the still-secret SIU report on the liquidation industry and the Master’s offices flowing from Proclamation R7 of 2020 (Government Gazette No. 42992 of 3 February 2020) and handed to the President in September 2023 in an oral question session with the Deputy President, who committed to follow up.

We have taken the following actions steps to speed up the process for accountability:
Submitted a PAIA application to the Presidency for the release of that report, so that those implicated can be held to account.

Submitted formal questions to the Minister of Finance demanding full disclosure of whether the attorneys, liquidators and auction houses attached to the Land Bank were appointed in compliance with Treasury procurement prescripts.

We will be engaging the Minister of Justice to secure an independent investigation into the Master’s offices, with a specific focus on farm liquidations instituted by the Land Bank.

Ensure that Land Bank respond timeously on the submitted report and commit to engage with farmers end these calculated ruthless liquidation syndicate attacks on the agriculture sector.

Greed cannot be allowed to threaten our food security, stunt economic growth and destroy jobs.

These outcomes were avoidable and would have been avoided had the Land Bank employed people with genuine agricultural expertise, mandated to grow the sector rather than strip it. The DA will not rest until every attorney, liquidator and official who profited from this scheme is held accountable.