John Steenhuisen dismisses Sakeliga 'misinformation on AgriBEE'

DA leader and agriculture minister John Steenhuisen has dismissed claims by Sakeliga that he is the mastermind behind “AgriBEE.”

The Pretoria-based organisation accused Steenhuisen and his department of “establishing transformation funds”, but he rejected the claim as false.

Steenhuisen believes Sakeliga CEO Piet le Roux is using the claim to steer a public campaign of misinformation and distortion.

“Le Roux seeks to falsely portray me as some BEE tsar to try to drive Sakeliga’s own membership and income through manufacturing outrage and sensationalism. I wish to set the record straight and refute Le Roux’s baseless sensationalism.

“First, the department of agriculture is not the custodian of BBBEE. A bit of basic research by Sakeliga and Le Roux would have shown the gazetting and promulgation of the architecture and regulatory framework was done by the department of trade and industry.”

The contentious codes of good practice were signed by a former trade and industry minister on December 8 2017 — nine years before Steenhuisen's appointment as minister, he said.

As any other, his department is subject to the law and legislative compliance is measured and included in the annual reports of the auditor-general on the audit outcomes of departments and public entities.

Responding to the allegation that he established transformation funds, Steenhuisen rejected the “absurd claim, saying the “evidence” put forward was his gazetting of several statutory levies.

“This is a statutory requirement for every minister of agriculture and has been since 1996. Le Roux conveniently and purposely leaves out the fact that these levies are not determined by the minister but are voluntarily initiated by the 21 commodity groups and these are then forwarded to the National Agricultural Marketing Council to investigate and initiate the report to the minister for gazetting.

“Apart from the fact that the act and measures were implemented almost a decade before I became minister, it is also important to underscore that the application for statutory measures by commodity organisations is a voluntary process. This is not something imposed by ministerial diktat as Le Roux tries to imply. It is something the industry chooses,” he said.

The minister took a jab at Le Roux for being under the false impression that his department issues water rights and is aiming to radicalise these.

“Water rights and licensing are done by the department of water and sanitation through a process that does not involve the minister of agriculture.

“Le Roux then proceeds to paint the entirely false narrative that, as minister, I have somehow created these big 'transformation funds' and I direct and determine how they are spent. Again, this is entirely false.

“Basic research would have revealed the statutory levy is paid over to the commodity groups. These independent commodity organisations, not government or the minister, decide upon the use of them. I have no role in the use of these funds, selecting beneficiaries or directing which projects or individuals must be chosen for assistance.”

Steenhuisen vowed to continue to support interventions which create equalities of opportunity.

“In government we must put in place positive measures to enhance equality of opportunity and entrench fairness that does not exclude anyone or take from anyone and instead grows the pie for everyone.

“Access to opportunity gives life and meaning to our hard-won freedoms and we can and must provide everyone with a solid foundation on which to use their own talents and innate abilities to take themselves as far as they wish to go.”

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