Namibia country report

Bernadine at Drimiopsis stated that people there did not co-operate in the garden. Somewere lazy and did not work. Others went only when they saw that she was going, and stayedhome when she did. Yet, everybody received food from the garden, which she did not thinkwas a good thing. General dissatisfaction with communal gardens had given rise to theidea that each beneficiary household should have its own small garden, and Bernadine wasconfident that this approach would improve the situation.An issue related to disputes over the distribution of produce from the communal garden wasthat those who worked in the garden did not know what happened to the money generatedfrom the sale of the produce. All group resettlement schemes were expected to divide theirharvests into a portion for own consumption and another for sale. The money generatedthrough the sales would then be deposited in a bank account to be used for the purchase ofdiesel fuel or other items needed by the scheme.At Skoonheid the intention was to distribute 40% of the harvest to those who worked in thegarden for their own consumption, and to sell the remainder. Part of the revenue receivedfrom sales, i.e. 40%, was meant to be used for the maintenance of project infrastructure, andthe remaining 60% paid into a bank account held by the community. In reality, however,80% of the harvest was consumed by the project households. A Resettlement DevelopmentCommittee sub-committee on health, education, water and agriculture decided how muchof the harvest to sell. The MLR provided transport to get produce to the market in Gobabis.The project bank account was kept in Gobabis and was managed by four project members.At the time of the research, the amount in the account was N$5 519. The project co-ordinatorkept the savings book, but was not authorised to withdraw from the account. The bankedmoney was used to repair garden infrastructure, e.g. engines and pumps, and to buy dieselwhen government supplies ran out. Individual beneficiaries did not receive any cash payouts,which posed problems. The first was that many people could not understand why they didnot receive any payment for their hard work. Secondly, because they received no payment,the beneficiaries were chronically short of money, and were unable to accumulate capitalfrom their gardening work to use for increasing output or investing in livestock. The resultwas that many beneficiaries stopped working in the communal garden.Against this background, the option of food for work must be evaluated. The ups and downsof communal gardening in Omaheke were directly linked to the provision of food for work.Initially, the prospect of receiving food rations from government every three months wasthe major incentive to work in the communal garden, and food rations were conditional onpeople working in the communal garden. When food rations stopped in 1998, willingnessto work in the communal garden dwindled. Many beneficiaries at Drimiopsis were said tohave left the project to find work on commercial farms instead.Alfons, a non-San beneficiary at Skoonheid, put the link between the lack of cash and thenecessity of food aid into perspective. He said that food aid is necessary to get people towork well, the reason being that while their crops are growing, they have nothing to eat.Also he said that people at Skoonheid still needed food aid after so many years becauseLivelihoods after Section Land Reform: B ● 6. Group Namibia Resettlement country report Schemes (2010) ● 139