Land not the answer to South Africa’s woes

Prosperity can only be achieved through productive utilisation of resources, writes from Hillbrow

IGram Chigura

have often wondered what it is about land that makes politicians think all poverty will be eradicated once people have been given it. Yes, people can build houses on land, but merely owning a piece of land cannot in any way make one prosperous.

Prosperity can only be achieved through productive utilisation of land, and not by mere ownership of that resource.

Let’s take this as an example: Africa is endowed with a vast array of resources, but due to lack of utilisation capacity, is still poor.

Proper utilisation is what makes people prosperous and we need not dig deep for facts as we have Robert Mugabe’s failures in this regard as a solid reminder.

It only takes clever people to learn from the consequences of other people’s failures. As the saying goes, “fools build houses and wise men live in them”.

We cannot apply primitive solutions to problems that were created in the primitive past as that will only expose our inability to grow and develop.

Populist politicians want people to believe that because everything comes from the land, ownership of that resource will bring everything that one needs to be prosperous. That school of thought is wrong because taps don’t make water.

Switzerland is the largest exporter of coffee in the world and yet there is not a single coffee farm in that country. They import it as a raw material and add value to make it the highly demandable product it is.

Japan has the third largest economy in the world not because of land ownership but because of the use they make of the natural resources at their disposal.