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I previously submitted an article about the return on capital investment which can be expected for farming in the Northern Cape. The rumblings about the sharing of 50% of you land with the workers which are present on the farm have not died down. In an article I read on here on News24 it stated that land would be given to the farm workers based on the inputs they have had on the farm and the number of years they have been working. This made me wonder which one of the farm workers which have been working for us will have the privilege of receiving half of our farm. I would just like to say that for the past 15 years workers on our farm have been paid the minimum wage including free housing, free meat, free electricity and free lifts. I will now summarise the careers of the workers that we have had in the past 15 years:
Person A: Great worker, stole the bakkie a couple of times but always returned it, worked for us for 8 years but unfortunately died of “chickenpox”. He had 3 wives and roughly 6 to 8 children.
Person B: Worked for us in two stints. First stint was 3 years but after he stole some expensive whiskey, he got drunk and started stabbing people. He was arrested and left. Two years later he was given another chance, however after finding out that you get just as much money for TB pay he decided to leave after just 1 year.
Person C: Worked for roughly 10 months but was fired after stealing all the copper fittings on the farm.
Person D: Worked for 18 months: One evening when he was drunk and beating up his wife. She ran to us and told us where to find the skins of the ~20 sheep and ~10 goats he had slaughtered and sold - Subsequently fired.
We currently do not have permanent workers anymore as it has become extremely difficult to find reliable labour these days. We currently pick up any random guy to work for 1 or 2 days in a week. If I had to choose who deserved the 50% I would say Person A, however he is no longer around. Maybe his children should get it although they can’t really work the land yet. Maybe it should be split between them according to years they worked so that they all get a share. This could work but Person A is not there, Person B would rather do nothing and exploit the TB pay system, Person C will sell all the pipes and Person D will sell all the sheep….I don’t know, food for thought.
