Land reform in limbo

LACK OF POLITICAL WILL: EX-PRESIDENT MOTLANTHE LIFTS THE LID

Government does not transfer ownership so it can control beneficiaries.

Former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe says there is a lack of political will on the part of parliament to address the land issue.

Speaking at the Real Estate Industry Summit in Sandton on Friday, he said what was needed was land reform, restitution and security of tenure – but the government was unduly delaying implementing these, he said.

Motlanthe said that in 2017, he and a panel submitted a summary of a report on land reform that consisted of a “simple recommendation” that could be implemented in a month or two at no cost – but that parliamentarians had made no attempt to read it.

“Despite the fact that it made very simple, straightforward recommendations, it was not read,” said Motlanthe.

He alluded to the fact that parliamentarians do not like to read.

“Some of us [on the panel] are former parliamentarians and we understand that if you produce a tome of a report, it will not be read,” he said.

“We grappled with this challenge and we said we must have an executive summary so that those who don’t feel like reading huge documents might at least go through the summary.”

He said the unread report detailed the challenges that led to the passing of the Natives Land Act in 1913 (it was amended in 1936).

The aim was for restitution to be achieved peacefully. To this end, Motlanthe said the panel recommended to parliament for the constitution to make provision for relevant facts to be determined, including how was the property acquired and for how much? What improvements have been made on it? What was the property currently being used for (so the going rate in the market at the time can be calculated)?

Motlanthe said the panel saw value in setting that kind of standard, with section

25 of the constitution protecting property and making provision for expropriation in the public interest, while also stipulating how just and equitable compensation should be calculated.

Motlanthe suggested parliament pass a law of general application, but the request fell on deaf ears.

The former president said the fifth parliament instead decided that section 25 was implicit about the right to expropriate land without compensation.

“The problem is that [government] lacks the political will to address the land question,” he said.

He added that parliamentarians then changed their minds and decided that section 25 was not explicit enough and wanted to amend it to make it explicitly clear that it shall be expropriation without compensation.

“Let’s hope it won’t happen in a hundred years time” he said.

“[Parliamentarians] had workshops and pretended to be listening to the people, but by next April they will come back and say that this is not a great idea and they will find a detour.

“There is no reliable registrar in this country. Nobody knows who owns what in terms of land in the former movements, specifically concerning the commercial farms because there are no records of them.”

Motlanthe said the report recommended that:

Residents of townships and urban areas needed to be given title deeds;

Farm dwellers receive tenure, ensured by legislation; and

Former homelands are provided with security of tenure.

Motlanthe added that the creation of the department of rural development and land reform was an error.

“This new department has no interest in land reform or restitution or security of tenure,” he said, adding that its preferred projects were establishing agricultural parks.

Motlanthe said the department bought land back and did not transfer ownership to beneficiaries “so that [the department] can control and manipulate them. There is a lot of corruption in how these things are dealt with,” he added.

There is a lot of corruption in these things