Getting to grips with aspects of land reform

Today hundreds of people are expected to gather at the Orient Theatre for the East London leg of the public hearings on the contentious issue of land ownership in South Africa.

The hearings are being conducted by the parliamentary constitutional review committee which is looking to gauge public sentiment on the desirability of amending section 25 of the constitution. This is the section which deals with the expropriation of land without compensation. The land debate was reignited by the radical calls of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) for the state to own all the land and to expropriate it without compensation. Riding on the wave of the growing public dissatisfaction with the failure of the democratic project to deliver economic development for millions of landless black people, who remain the face of unemployment and poverty in South Africa, the EFF found fertile ground to bring the debate to the surface.

The debate found its way into the corridors of parliament, resulting in the countrywide public hearings which are being held in the Eastern Cape this week.

That is why we are publishing the land edition today. Today’s edition is not an attempt to answer or offer solutions to the lingering questions around land ownership and restitution in the country. Rather, it is meant to bring the debate into context and present our readers with the various viewpoints of the interest groups – from land experts, interest groups and political parties. The reality is that land is a major flashpoint in our country and it is important that this debate is approached with cool heads and with utmost decorum. At the end of the day, regardless of which side of the ideological divide one stands at, we all have to find a solution to the unsustainable situation of millions of people who are landless while most land remains in the hands of the few – the government and private land owners. When all the finger-pointing is said and done, all the relevant stakeholders have to come up with solutions to address the skewed land ownership patterns in the country. If Codesa negotiations brought us a democratic government in 1994, we have another opportunity to have meaningful dialogue to address the issues of land – in a peaceful and productive manner.

Today’s edition is meant to bring the debate into context and present our readers with the various viewpoints