Dear Minister Nkwinti

I am the minister of the Uniting Reformed Church of Carnarvon, and also the chairperson of the SKA Stakeholders Forum of our town. We have certain serious reservations about the SKA's undemocratic top-down enforcement of their projects in our area. Even our local Municipal Council has become little more than a rubber stamp for these projects In the process. I believe that a genuine opportunity for real land reform is being squandered.

The letter below is one that I sent to our president, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa. I am, however aware that his work load must be huge, and in any case, he might decide to refer the matter to you.

Thank you for your kind attention.



Dear President Ramaphosa

Congratulations on your appointment as our president and thank you for the quick and decisive action that you have taken on several fronts, in order to restore the integrity of your high office. We pray for you for continued wisdom in leading us in these challenging, but also exciting, times.

The letter addressed to you below, needs a lot of context, but we are certain that Minister Pandor will be in a position to assist you in this regard. I wrote her a letter on behalf of our SKA Stakeholders Forum last year, and I also asked her a question about the veil of secrecy around several of the actions of the SKA in our area, during her visit to our town towards the end of last year.

How do you summarize the struggle of our Uniting Reformed Church since August, 2016, and that of our SKA Stakeholders Forum since the middle of last year, to be heard? Actually, you rather don’t, because the whole matter will deteriorate into an unhelpful and childish “is”, “is not” situation. Perhaps the solution is very, very simple indeed. I suggest the following:

Please assist us in arranging a Carnarvon meeting, with ALL stakeholders in the town and district represented. Then please ask the meeting the question who of them as individuals, or organizations, have been consulted on any of the huge interventions of the SKA in our town and district. They promulgated the AAA, declared the SKA a national keypoint, bought 130000 hectares of land (38 farming units) and are now in the process of transferring the land to the Parks Board. In addition there are several rumours doing the rounds, which we can neither confirm, nor refute to our people.

When asked about whom the SKA had consulted in all of this, we have transcripts of the meeting in which it was revealed to us as a Forum, that they had consulted with AGRI SA, the San Council and the Khoi Council, and are even considering talking to the Koranna Council. None of these people whom they presumably consulted, live in our area! The local farmers association, LAG, and AGRI, Northern Cape also made it very clear that they were not consulted about the Parks Board isssue.

What makes this issue so much more untenable, is that I personally have, more than a year ago, submitted a simple suggestion, which I also personally discussed with dr. Rob Adam. I must immediately stress that this suggestion was my own, and not that of the forum, or the Uniting Reformed Church. The suggestion can be summarized as follows:

- Seeing that the SKA has already bought 130000 hectares of land without consultation, let us try to resolve the issue, however insulted we feel about this transgression of our democratic rights. In order to resolve the matter, let us grasp the opportunity by turning it into a land reform initiative, in line with your own party’s policy of expropriation of land without compensation. How do we do that?
- Firstly, we acknowledge that more than 20 black owned farms in our district, were expropriated under colonialism and apartheid, scarcely a century ago. Let us identify those in our community who have submitted land claims, and identify the children in those families that wish to become genuine farmers again.
- Once you have identified those learners, send them to an FET college where they receive training on how to farm in a radio sensitive area, without causing any hindrance for the SKA activities. In fact, my suggestion was that such an FET college be established in Carnarvon, and that the best international science experts be called upon to invest in research on how to farm in the area of the SKA, without causing any interference with the SKA signals. We still have time for this, because the planning of phase 2 of the SKA is only to commence in five years time (2023).
- How would it make sense to replace white farmers, with black farmers?! Well, there is a huge difference, because those black farmers who qualify to go and farm in the AAA region, will be bound by the strictest rules, to ensure that they are no hindrance to the SKA research programmes. They will receive land free, but will sign a contract which makes it very clear that they will lose that land, the moment they do not comply with rules of the contract that they have signed with the SKA.

I wish to once again make it very clear that this is just the ideas of an individual heeding your call for “thuma mina”. It is also meant to be no more than an example of the sort of inputs that we as a community could have made a very long time ago, had we been given the opportunity to do so.
We are also struggling to understand how the Parks Board could take over the 130000 hectares of land? Does it make any sense at all? Wild animals will be allowed to roam this land, right? But not sheep? Why not? Game rangers and other staff, managing the fencing will be driving their vehicles through the area, right? Why would black farmers then not be allowed to do the same, even after signing contracts with strict provisos?

We have so much more to tell you, Mr. President, but we hope that at least it will give you some context about the letter below, which was sent to dr. Anton Binneman, the Stakeholder Manager of the SKA, on 23 February. The letter below was not sent in my personal capacity, but on behalf of the SKA Stakeholders Forum.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Dr. I.C. (Sakkie) Potgieter
izakcpotgieter@gmail.com
Cell. 0721416251