Leaving land in hands of few risks instability
Mabuza criticises current programme as hopeless
Deputy president David Mabuza says peace and stability was unimaginable in the country if land ownership remained in the hands of few people.
Addressing the National Council of Provinces‚ Mabuza on Thursday warned that if the country did not resolve the land question‚ it was merely postponing the inevitable. “No political stability‚ peace and democracy are imaginable as long as the bulk of the land is in the hands of the few.”
He said in reality‚ the positive prospects of our shared destiny as a country was largely dependent on the ability to resolve the land question in a very responsible and fair manner.
“If we do not take the necessary decision that will address the current state of inequality and concretely deal with the past injustices with necessary firmness and determination‚ we will be postponing the inevitable social friction that will pull us backward.”
He said comprehensive land reform to address past injustices was necessary for the country to move forward and that without it the nation risked having endless social‚ racial and class frictions.
But Mabuza criticised the current land reform programme‚ saying it was hopeless‚ very slow and caused frustration among claimants due to “budgetary constraints and the willing buyer-willing seller approach”.
“The market-led mechanism of pursuing land reform has proved to be protracted and inappropriate.”
Mabuza further defended the ANC’s stance that section 25 of the constitution should be changed to accelerate land reform.
This after DA member Jacques Julius criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa for pronouncing on the ANC’s stance on expropriation.
“The ANC went into its own conference... and in the conference the ANC took a resolution that we are going to transfer land through expropriation without compensation‚ and we were the first to sponsor that.
“I don’t know why we are criticising the president when it’s advocating the resolution of the ANC‚” said Mabuza.
He said all political parties had a right to advocate their position on the proposed amendment of section 25 of the constitution to expropriate land.
EFF member Tebogo Mokwele asked if the ANC would allow for the state to be the custodian of the land after amending section 25.
Mabuza responded‚ saying the land reform model of the ANC was to transfer the land to individual owners who will have individual title deeds.
“Our land restitution‚ the land is going to go to those people who were dispossessed of their land.
“This land‚ part and parcel of the land we are talking about‚ we are talking about the land that... is under utilises‚ or it’s unused [with absent owners].”
He said the state did not want to destroy productive capacity of land owned by commercial farmers but it wanted them to step forward and share the land. He said they should know from the onset that the land was dispossessed from someone.
The deputy president added that he was aware that there were people who were scared that the ruling party would not handle the process in a responsible way, but the party intended to allow new entrants to use land productively.