DA lodges complaint over new BEE agricultural produce export rules

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has lodged a complaint with the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) trade offices over new South African agricultural regulations regarding export permits, which will prevent  farms that are “too white” from being allowed to export to the UK and the EU.

This comes after the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development published new notices in the Government Gazette in October and November in which farmers must meet black economic empowerment (BEE) requirements to obtain export permits for Europe.

New rules

Under these procedures, any South African agricultural exporter or farmer who wishes to obtain an export permit must comply with the amended agricultural BEE (AgriBEE) sector code, as well as the BEE Act.

If an exporter does not conform to these provisions, through a certificate of compliance and annual reports to the regulatory council, it will be denied an export permit.

The guidelines will apply to agricultural businesses with a minimum annual turnover of R10 million or more.

ALSO READ: ‘Economic genocide’- New rules mean only BEE farms can export

Race quotas

Noko Masipa, DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development said the party was also obtaining legal advice over what she called “ANC’s job-killing race quotas”.

“The ANC government is now imposing trade barriers on the very export businesses we desperately need to create more jobs. The government is wilfully and deliberately destroying jobs and livelihoods, and depriving business owners and workers of economic export opportunities – all in the furtherance of its perverse obsession with skin colour.

“Even worse, these rules will deprive the country of valuable foreign currency inflows and lead to the dumping of export-quality fruits, vegetables and other products, simply because the producers of these products are deemed by the ANC to have the “wrong” skin colour,” said Masipa.

Masipa said the new regulations was “the bureaucratic equivalent of imposing a pencil test on South African agricultural exporters”.

“The DA has already lodged a complaint with the EU Trade Commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, and the UK Secretary of State for the Department for Business and Trade, Kemi Badenoch, over these job-killing race quotas. We will also be obtaining legal advice,” Masipa said.

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