Land issues explained to press

A CRASH course at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) provided journalists from different news outlets a better understanding on land reform and expropriation without compensation, to enable more accurate reporting .

The workshop was organised by the Institute For Poverty, Land And Agrarian Studies (Plaas), in collaboration with the SocioEconomic Rights Institute of SA, and with the support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Plaas professors Ruth Hall and Ben Cousins presented journalists with the historic background and the legal complexities surrounding land reform through expropriation.

The workshop covered and clarified issues around the “willing buyer, willing seller” principle, land expropriation, budgets for land acquisition and farmer support, farm evictions, women’s land rights, traditional leaders and traditional councils and foreign land ownership, among others.

Hall said that while the constitution had been amended over the years, the Bill of Right had not.

Cousins said there would be questions posed on whether the constitution should be used to transform the structure of society in fundamental ways, its possibilities and limitations.

He said after 24 years of democracy South Africa remained the most unequal society on the planet.