We want a win-win outcome on land

President Cyril Ramaphosa this weekend insisted expropriation of land without compensation will not benefit politicians or the elite. That’s all well and good. South Africans are tired of seeing the rich getting richer, while the poor continue to struggle. The entire land debate is a sensitive one and must be handled with care. There’s so much uncertainty in how the process will play out, just look at how tempers flared this week in parliament’s land hearings.

“Let it be clear that the land as it is given to our people is not going to be given to politicians, it is going to be given to our people,” Ramaphosa told a business breakfast in Pietermaritzburg.

“Revolutionary parties, in the end, when it comes to land reform processes, they go and grab for themselves. The elite go and grab. This is not an elite empowerment process for land. It is an empowerment process of our people as a whole,” added Ramaphosa. “We want a winwin outcome, we want our people to win, and so do we want those who are holding land to also have some measure of successes as well.”

We all want a win-win outcome. The proof will be in the handling and execution of these plans.