Bid to speed up land claims process

THE portfolio committee on rural development and land reform wants to speed up the process of correcting defects in the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill and re-open the window to claims.

In July the Constitutional Court threw out the Bill because it did not meet certain constitutional provisions, including proper consultations by one of the Houses of Parliament and finalising all claims lodged before 1998.

The committee, chaired by ANC MP Phumzile Ngwenya-Mabila, is currently in Limpopo conducting public hearings on the Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill.

Ngwenya-Mabila said yesterday they would address issues of the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill early next year.

This would give the committee time to fix all the loopholes identified by the Constitutional Court.

In its ruling the court said all new claims must be halted and that the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform must prioritise claims lodged before the end of December 1998.

The court decision meant that more than 160 000 new land claims would not be processed for the next two years.

Ngwenya-Mabila said they had engaged parties on the matter and the process would start from scratch.

“We received a briefing from Parliament’s legal advisers and the Land Claims Commission and they have started some plans,” she said.

Once they had finished their work on the Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill public hearings they would get on with the business of correcting the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill.

The Bill was rushed through Parliament in 2014, before the national and provincial elections, and the re-opening of claims saw more than 160 000 new claims lodged with the Land Commission. But the claims would not be processed until the legislation has been fixed.

Chairman of the select committee on land and mineral resources in the NCOP Olifile Sefako said: “We don’t want to miss any step.”