Mabuza defends decision on land reform

Deputy President David Mabuza said on Thursday peace and stability were unimaginable in South Africa if land ownership stayed in the hands of the few.

Addressing the National Council of Provinces‚ Mabuza 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.

“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.”

Comprehensive land reform to address past injustices was necessary for the country to move forward, he said, and without it the country risked having endless social‚ racial and class frictions.

But he criticised the current land reform programme‚ calling it hopeless‚ slow and a cause of frustration among claimants due to “budgetary constraints and the willing buyer‚ willing seller approach”.

“The market-led mechanism of pursuing land reform has proved cumbersome, protracted and inappropriate‚” he said.

Mabuza defended the ANC’s position that Section 25 of the constitution be changed to accelerate land reform.

This after DA member Jacques Julius criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa over the ANC’s stance on expropriation.

Mabuza said: “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 of the ANC when it’s advocating the resolution of the ANC.”

He said all parties had a right to advocate their position on the proposed amendment of Section 25.

EFF member Tebogo Mokwele asked whether the ANC would allow for the state to be custodian of the land after amending Section 25.

Mabuza said the ANC’s land reform model was to transfer the land to individual owners who would have individual title deeds. –