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We have complained to the Northern Cape Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development in trying to get their attention since they funded the project and have responsibility to monitor whether state funds were not [misappropriated]. They ignored our complaint, which means no one in the department must held accountable for the failure of the Agri-BEE project. – beneficiary, Mandilakhe Mpemba.

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Sizwe sama Yende

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Uneducated black beneficiaries of agribusinesses in the Northern Cape were allegedly given documents written in big and legalese Afrikaans to sign away their government-sponsored shareholding.

They thought they were signing for their annual dividends but were selling their shares back to white farmers for a mere R20 000 each.

This is the ruse the Northern Cape commercial farmers used to swindle farm workers of their shares in 22 equity share schemes. They also divided and ruled the trustees - and worked with the malleable ones to remove others.

Mandilakhe Mpemba, one of the beneficiaries of Badirammogo Trust which held 45% in Sonvrucht crop and livestock farm in Kakamas, broke down to The People’s Eye how 45 farm workers lost their shareholding worth R36 million in an instant in 2017.

Each of the workers contributed R800 000 from the Northern Cape Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development and Land Reform to buy the shares but ended up making R20 000 when they were duped to sell their shares back to the farm owner.

“Some of the trustees worked out a plan to remove other beneficiaries from the trust as part of assisting the white farmer,” Mpemba said.

“The trustees served [big] Afrikaans documents to their fellow uneducated partners to sign for their R20 000 dividends at the time, which was false. The document was actually a deed of sale and everyone sold his/her shares to the owner of the farm,” he said.

Mpemba said that the collaborators were awarded with high positions on the farming business.

“We have complained to the Northern Cape Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development in trying to get their attention since they funded the project and have responsibility to monitor whether state funds were not [misappropriated]. They ignored our complaint, which means no one in the department must held accountable for the failure of the Agri-BEE project,” he added.

The outgoing Northern Cape government spent an estimated R1billion on the project hailed as one of the greatest empowerment schemes for farm labourers but has been shunning calls for it to demand accountability for taxpayers’ money that has been spent.

The government has refused to answer questions and has also declined to pay an investigator who unravelled the scandal. 

Instead, the government has resorted to appeal a Kimberley High Court decision, which ordered them to to pay R3.7 million to Morwapheta Consulting Services for investigating how unscrupulous white farmers robbed the farm workers.

Morwapheta Consulting Services owner, Mpho Sebashe, said that government was avoiding implementing recommendations of his investigation, which say the workers’ shares must be returned to them.

Sebashe investigated Badirammogo Trust but said that the farmers involved in all the 22 schemes allegedly used the same modus operandi.

According to the  Northern Cape Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development’s appeal court papers dated April 15 2024,  departmental head, Moira Marais, argues that the department did not appoint Morwapheta Consulting Services to conduct the investigation.

Marais said that the majority judges in the Kimberley High Court erred when they relied on minutes of a meeting that took place on June 30 2017 as being indicative that the department instructed the Master of the High Court to appoint Sebashe’s company.