South Africa’s land debate is clouded by misrepresentation and lack of data
land has been privately purchased by black farmers and how much has been acquired via land reform.
Consider two national land audits released in recent months, one by the agricultural lobby group AgriSA and the other by government. Both are based on analysis of information derived from title deeds in the national registry.
The AgriSA land audit of 2017 argues that the initial target of transferring 30 percent of agricultural land via land reform is close to being met. It concludes that the market is much more effective at transferring land than the state.
But the market is not redistributing land to black people to the extent AgriSA claims. Its methodology and most of its conclusions are fundamentally flawed. For example, much of the 4.3 million hectares of land it says were acquired through private purchases by previously disadvantaged individuals includes transfers of land as a result of land reform. In these cases, government has provided funds and served as an intermediary in the transaction. So they were not private transactions.
Government’s latest land audit is also not particularly useful. It provides some evidence of continuing patterns of racial inequality in land ownership. But it can’t identify the racial, gender and national identity of the 320 000 companies, trust and community based organisations that own 61 percent of all privately owned land.
Neither of these audits is able to identify zones of need and opportunity for land reform. Information of this kind, crucial for well planned redistribution, simply doesn’t exist.
There is almost zero information on how many people have actually benefited from land reform, patterns of land use after transfer, and levels of production and income.
A few reports on these issues have been published, but they aren’t a substitute for systematic data collection. Similarly, case studies by academics can’t serve the wider purposes of guiding planning for land reform at scale.
In relation to deeds registry data, there are vast discrepancies between official records for black land owners, both rural and urban, and realities on the ground. In our 2017 book, ‘ Untitled. Securing land tenure in urban and rural South Africa’, we estimate that close to 60 percent of all South Africans hold land or housing outside the formal system, and the deeds registry can tell us little or nothing about these realities.
Official data, although inadequate, does allow common misrepresentations of land reform to be refuted. For example, one widely held view is that the great majority of land restitution claimants have chosen cash compensation rather than restoration of their land. This is nonsense.
Around 87 percent of land claims lodged by the cutoff date in 1998 were to urban properties, and in most cases claimants were offered (and accepted) a standard cash settlement, because restoration was clearly impracticable. But the great majority of rural claims, involving a great many more people since most are group claims, have opted for restoration. OLIEVENHOUTBOSCH — President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa has entered a healing mode, where challenges such as corruption and unemployment will be addressed.
Speaking during a church service at the Hope Restoration Covenant Church in Olievenhoutbosch, Tshwane, Ramaphosa said the ANC’s watershed December elective congress was a prayer to God in order to save the country. “It was like praying, praying to our God, saying please come down and heal South Africa, come and heal our land. South Africa is being healed cause there’s a new dawn, new spirit flowing through South Africa,” said Ramaphosa.
In a weekend where some were taken by the spirit of ‘Ramaphoria’, as ordinary South Africans came out in their numbers to meet the president and line up for selfies, Ramaphosa visited parts of Gauteng and urged citizens to go and register and check their details ahead of the 2019 national elections.
During the church visit, Ramaphosa quoted several bible verses, telling congregants about the importance of humbling oneself and the renewal which he believed
Another misconception is that land reform can involve the redistribution of state owned land. The reality is that most state land in rural areas comprises densely settled communal land which obviously isn’t available for redistribution. The recent government land audit confirms this, and shows that state land comprises only 18 percent of the total.
In urban areas, however, state owned land can be used for low cost housing if it is in appropriate locations close to economic opportunities.
The single most misleading “fact” endlessly repeated in the media is the assertion by former minister Gugile Nkwinti that 90 percent of land reform projects have failed. This has no foundation in any research evidence — a fact that he himself later admitted.
Empirical evidence suggests that around 50 percent of the projects have improved the livelihoods of beneficiaries to a degree.
This is not to say that these land reform projects have been highly productive. The real potential of rural land reform and agricultural development, as well as urban land reform, to reduce poverty and inequality has not been realised in South Africa to date.
How to acquire and transfer land, the focus of much current debate, is the least difficult aspect of land reform. It simply requires increasing the tiny budget and paying just and equitable compensation in line with the constitution.
Larger challenges involve targeting beneficiaries, identifying well located land, ensuring that water is reallocated along with land, effective district based planning, and enabling small scale economic activity in both rural and urban spaces.
And new legislation that secures the rights of people in the social tenures found in communal areas, farm dweller communities and informal settlements is also an urgent requirement.
Much of the current commentary on land policy is ill informed and fails to identify these challenges. More important, the lack of robust official data on land and agriculture is a key problem that must surely be high on the agenda of the new president.- Conversation Africa
— Ben Cousins, Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape
It’s like ‘South Africa is being healed’ by God - Ramaphosa
South Africa was undergoing. “We are now in healing mode. God is addressing our problems, he is addressing our challenges,” said Ramaphosa.
Things would start changing for the better and the party looked forward to people registering and checking their details, he added.
Ramaphosa, who was flanked by the ANC leadership in both the province and Tshwane, said the upcoming general elections were a part of the process needed to renew the country and would result in the country consolidating its victories and strengthening its democracy. During this process [we] will see a lot of things change, things will start changing for the better and we look forward to people registering and checking their details,” said the president.
Ramaphosa also addressed an angry group of residents outside the church.
Just days before his visit, protesters torched a clinic and other municipal buildings and have been calling for the removal of their local councillor.
“We are going to address everything. If it’s about houses we will build houses. If it’s service delivery, we will resolve that,” said Ramaphosa. — AFP