WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2005-06-21 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
GOVERNMENT has lifted its seven-month moratorium on standing guarantee for farms bought through Agribank”s Affirmative Action Loan Scheme (AALS) with immediate effect.
Along with lifting the ban on its guarantee, it has also imposed stricter rules for the sale and purchase of commercial land in the interest of making the scheme more sustainable.
The Ministry of Lands will no longer issue waivers to commercial farmers who wish to sell their farms to a buyer who is prepared to pay more than the agricultural value as calculated by Agribank and the Lands Ministry, if there is an Affirmative Action buyer prepared to buy it at this price.
Agribank will also no longer fund the purchase of any farm of which the selling price is above the agricultural value.
From now on, Agribank and the Lands Ministry will have to agree on the value of a farm, so that there will be no differences in prices for farms acquired under the resettlement programme and those under the AALS.
The Minister of Finance, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, said in the National Assembly on Friday that this was not aimed at controlling farm prices; it was rather aimed at ensuring that potential AA buyers were not conned into paying more for a farm than its production value.
“The new formula will simply ensure value for money and sound practices given that in the past that the market price of farm land has been above the productive value of the farm,” she said.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said the new formula would also ensure that landowners did not “exploit” the market.
The formulas for calculating the agricultural value of the land, the loan amount and the guarantee amount have now all been “re-developed” to make the scheme more sustainable and affordable.
Depending on how much Agribank is prepared to lend and the down payment of the potential buyer (which will be capped at 10 per cent), Government will in future step in to guarantee the shortfall.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said this would be between 10 and 20 per cent of the agricultural land value, depending on the beneficiary”s contribution.
“This ensures that the beneficiary of the guarantee is indeed the buyer and not the seller,” said Kuugongelwa-Amadhila.
In the past, the standard 35 per cent Government offered as guarantee was calculated on the amount the bank was prepared to lend.
This led to sellers inflating prices and buyers being unable to repay loans because the farms could not produce enough to pay the instalments.
The Minister told the House that the guarantee was never intended to be a subsidy, but rather to cover some of Agribank”s risk and to relieve the burden of down payments by the beneficiary.
The huge losses incurred by Agribank, and the millions Government owed the institution in payments and interest, caused Government to put its subsidy scheme on hold last November, while a Cabinet committee overhauled the scheme to make it sustainable.
Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200506200081.htm…/p>