{"id":245755,"date":"2018-05-20T07:37:49","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T05:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=245755"},"modified":"2018-05-20T09:54:46","modified_gmt":"2018-05-20T07:54:46","slug":"fight-over-r300-million-chinese-project-to-grow-rice-in-mpumalanga-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/245755\/fight-over-r300-million-chinese-project-to-grow-rice-in-mpumalanga-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Fight over R300 million Chinese project to grow rice in Mpumalanga: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With land redistribution a hot topic in South Africa, questions are being raised around two new &#8216;mega developments&#8217; which have seen hundreds of hectares of land awarded to Chinese companies.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report by the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Economy\/row-over-land-set-aside-for-chinese-20180518\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">City Press<\/a><\/strong>, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the two communities in Bushbuckridge and Thaba Chweu have opposed the deals, stating that it was a form of land expropriation that will benefit foreign companies and negatively impact future generations in the area.<\/p>\n<p>The first project will see\u00a0Africa Sino Project enter into a long-term lease with the\u00a0Bushbuckridge municipality, for no shorter than 50 years, to grow rice and develop a new agricultural hub.<\/p>\n<p>This will be done on 100 hectares of land, and is said to be valued at R300 million, the paper reported.<\/p>\n<p>Agriculture experts have noted that vast amounts of water will be needed to grow the crop in the area, as rice is grown mostly in water-logged Asian countries.<\/p>\n<p>Africa Sino Project also plans to build a five-star hotel, upmarket rental accommodation and a water sports park on 93 hectares of land near the Kruger National Park, according to documents City Press has seen.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0Bushbuckridge council spokesperson confirmed that the municipality had asked government to release the land for \u201cmega developments\u201d, but that\u00a0no land had been given to the investment company to date.<\/p>\n<p>City Press also notes that the Thaba Chweu Local Municipality recently donated\u00a0about 400 hectares\u00a0to the Chinese company CSEEC, which is constructing the R380 million Duma substation on two hectares of land.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the land is being used to build Chinese workers\u2019 houses and other amenities, the paper said.<\/p>\n<p><em>You can read the full report in the City Press for 20 May 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/242343\/new-laws-plan-to-give-stronger-rights-to-land-occupiers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0New laws plan to give stronger rights to \u2018land occupiers\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Questions are being raised around two new &#8216;mega developments&#8217; which have seen hundreds of hectares of land awarded to Chinese companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":245765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-245755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245755"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245781,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245755\/revisions\/245781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}