Making the ANC’s January 8th speech the president of the ANC insisted “it is time to return the land to our people”.
This would be done by using a new Expropriation Act to take land away from other South African people.
The President of South Africa, however, thinks this land is only worth one thousandth of his national budget – the average provision in both South Africa and Zimbabwe over many years.
Supposedly the “willing buyer, willing seller” policy has failed because white farmers refuse to sell for purposes of land reform or are holding out for unrealistic prices. This may have been the case elsewhere, in provinces such as Mpumalanga, but it is not in the Eastern Cape.
So this speech is yet another example of the regularly proposed red herring solutions to the delays in land reform.
These solutions have little effect because they ignore the real problems: bureaucratic incompetence, lack of financial and staff resources, an absence of political will and a failure to delegate authority for land beyond Pretoria.
The new Expropriation Bill (as yet unsigned into law by President Jacob Zuma), like the existing apartheid act, has constitutional problems which will probably increase the process time required and breed strings of court cases.
“Public interest” (vs “public benefit”) will allow expropriation for land reform.
Interestingly the Act will be the responsibility of the Minister of Public Works who has no land reform role whatsoever.
The new Act, if implemented, will do little to speed up land reform. Land is a national competence.
Land in South Africa falls under two national ministers – Public Works if it is in the former RSA – or the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform if the land is in former “homelands” or involves land redistribution, restitution or tenure reform. No-one in the Eastern Cape has authority over land reform – not the premier, not any MEC, not any municipality – land is a national competence constitutionally. That is unlikely to change, but authority could have been delegated.
Land issues and reform have to be dealt with locally. Land administration cannot be done nationally – it is a detailed local function that must take place erf by erf, with Permission to Occupy sites, by allotment, farm by farm. It must eventually become a municipal function.
There are about 600000 households in the Eastern Cape with rights to communal land. They were promised land tenure reform under the constitution but are still waiting for the unconstitutional 2004 Communal Land Rights Act to be replaced. Traditional leaders would love to fill the vacuum.
One consequence of the lack of tenure reform is that of the 11 approved wind energy projects in the Eastern Cape bringing in billions in investment, not one is east of the Great Kei River.
This is because land tenure reform has not taken place. It took three years to get the minister’s signature for a Transkei wind project, by which stage the developers had gone elsewhere.
The second leg of land reform – restitution – has seen the same scale of delay as tenure.
The Salem restitution case (DD, January 11) has taken 19 years so far to get to the first step in processing the claim.
In Mthatha unresolved claims are preventing major mall and casino development, having cost the King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality R300-million.
Government’s red herring cure for these delays was to amend the Restitution Act allowing for another 100000 claims.
Dwesa-Cwebe was the first major rural restitution case in South Africa, supposedly formally settled by Zuma as Vice-President in 2002.
Unfortunately it is only one instance of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) failing to issue title in defiance of the constitution.
Mkambati is in the same situation, along with many other places across the country.
Community property associations (CPAs) nationwide have not received title deeds to their land, largely due to government heeding traditional leaders above all.
The importance of CPAs have become critical in confirming access to mineral resources – especially platinum in Limpopo and Northwest, but without a legal body, as at Xolobeni on the Wild Coast, rights are more difficult to protect.
The land restitution programme is a largely a sham which has distributed money in urban cases, but little land in rural areas.
The DRDLR’s provincial office has 300 staff. The Eastern Cape’s Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform staff is 3000. Is this a reflection of their relative importance for the President?
There is also no training in this complex field.
There are many would-be and experienced civil servants in the province, but there is still no formal degree or diploma in land administration and reform by which they can capacitate themselves.
The actual policy: Take title from whites, don’t give title to blacks. The redistribution leg of land reform had a target of 30% (based on what?) of white farms. By 2016 it had reached only about 10%.
But even that is now questionable as in 2010 the policy changed from giving title to land reform beneficiaries to giving leases.
The land redistribution programme no longer gives title to farms acquired by DRDLR for so-called beneficiaries, but only three-year leases.
This is exactly the same system used in Ciskei in 1980s, where the Peddie south farms remain state land to this day and are now under restitution claims.
It also echoes Zimbabwe where no titles have ever been issued on resettlement schemes. These remain state land.
The Proactive Land Aquisition strategy (PLAS) allocates a three-year lease, then bureaucrats decide if you are a farmer , and perhaps then you may be given title.
It is a clear policy of state land acquisition, not constitutional land reform.
It is also ironic that the favoured model for South Africa land reform is that of large (white) commercial farm units. No farms have been sub-divided into smallholder farms suitable for beginner or subsistence farmers.
In Zimbabwe’s initial resettlement after independence these were successful reform models. Yet South Africa sticks to 19th century surveyed farm units and boundaries.
There are also no records or even estimates of private black farm purchasers outside of the land reform programme – which would provide lessons for what works and what the problems are.
Why is DRDLR not analysing the Elliot and Komga districts where the 30% target was exceeded years ago? Is there a difference between titled and leased farms?
There has never been a list of potential beneficiaries to demonstrate that the politically touted “land hunger” actually exists, or to enable planning.
What land do beneficiaries want? Where? What size? For what purpose? How many with a constitutional right to land want a place of their own regardless of use or size, but have been forgotten in the shift of government’s emphasis to black commercial farmers.?
Insufficient co-ordinated farmer support is another major weakness – even between agriculture and land reform departments. Extension services are now so poor that the private sector has replaced government through GrainSA, Hortgro or NGOs such as Mngcube in the area of livestock veterinary services.
Yet emerging farmers face massive challenges. For example, Eskom has, over the last five years, quoted an emerging farmer from R400000 to R1200000 to connect irrigation supplies crossing his farm to a neighbouring village. But no thought has been given by the government to possibly subsidising this as part of an integrated support package.
Farming is also not about what you can grow, it’s about what you can sell. For formal channels land reform harvests are too small; supermarkets are pricemakers wanting consistent large volumes. Neither suits the beneficiaries.
Municipal fresh markets, informal traders are the best options for beneficiaries, but no there is no government support relating these two to land reform farmers.
What can be done: Actual political commitment; co-ordinated post-settlement support; subdivision and the creation of small farms; land rights must be given to the disadvantaged – people need a place of their own to live regardless of the use; delegate authority to at least the province, but eventually to municipalities. This requires constitutional change; lessons must be taken from black private farm purchasers; and there must be training and qualifications for those venturing into this field.
Mike Coleman is a specialist in land, rural development and agricultural planning in the Eastern Cape
k In the headline in yesterday’s piece in this space the public protector’s name was incorrectly spelt. She is of course, Busisiwe Mkhwebane. We regret the error – the editor
Taking land from whites, giving it to state
This would be done by using a new Expropriation Act to take land away from other South African people.
The President of South Africa, however, thinks this land is only worth one thousandth of his national budget – the average provision in both South Africa and Zimbabwe over many years.
Supposedly the “willing buyer, willing seller” policy has failed because white farmers refuse to sell for purposes of land reform or are holding out for unrealistic prices. This may have been the case elsewhere, in provinces such as Mpumalanga, but it is not in the Eastern Cape.
So this speech is yet another example of the regularly proposed red herring solutions to the delays in land reform.
These solutions have little effect because they ignore the real problems: bureaucratic incompetence, lack of financial and staff resources, an absence of political will and a failure to delegate authority for land beyond Pretoria.
The new Expropriation Bill (as yet unsigned into law by President Jacob Zuma), like the existing apartheid act, has constitutional problems which will probably increase the process time required and breed strings of court cases.
“Public interest” (vs “public benefit”) will allow expropriation for land reform.
Interestingly the Act will be the responsibility of the Minister of Public Works who has no land reform role whatsoever.
The new Act, if implemented, will do little to speed up land reform. Land is a national competence.
Land in South Africa falls under two national ministers – Public Works if it is in the former RSA – or the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform if the land is in former “homelands” or involves land redistribution, restitution or tenure reform. No-one in the Eastern Cape has authority over land reform – not the premier, not any MEC, not any municipality – land is a national competence constitutionally. That is unlikely to change, but authority could have been delegated.
Land issues and reform have to be dealt with locally. Land administration cannot be done nationally – it is a detailed local function that must take place erf by erf, with Permission to Occupy sites, by allotment, farm by farm. It must eventually become a municipal function.
There are about 600000 households in the Eastern Cape with rights to communal land. They were promised land tenure reform under the constitution but are still waiting for the unconstitutional 2004 Communal Land Rights Act to be replaced. Traditional leaders would love to fill the vacuum.
One consequence of the lack of tenure reform is that of the 11 approved wind energy projects in the Eastern Cape bringing in billions in investment, not one is east of the Great Kei River.
This is because land tenure reform has not taken place. It took three years to get the minister’s signature for a Transkei wind project, by which stage the developers had gone elsewhere.
The second leg of land reform – restitution – has seen the same scale of delay as tenure.
The Salem restitution case (DD, January 11) has taken 19 years so far to get to the first step in processing the claim.
In Mthatha unresolved claims are preventing major mall and casino development, having cost the King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality R300-million.
Government’s red herring cure for these delays was to amend the Restitution Act allowing for another 100000 claims.
Dwesa-Cwebe was the first major rural restitution case in South Africa, supposedly formally settled by Zuma as Vice-President in 2002.
Unfortunately it is only one instance of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) failing to issue title in defiance of the constitution.
Mkambati is in the same situation, along with many other places across the country.
Community property associations (CPAs) nationwide have not received title deeds to their land, largely due to government heeding traditional leaders above all.
The importance of CPAs have become critical in confirming access to mineral resources – especially platinum in Limpopo and Northwest, but without a legal body, as at Xolobeni on the Wild Coast, rights are more difficult to protect.
The land restitution programme is a largely a sham which has distributed money in urban cases, but little land in rural areas.
The DRDLR’s provincial office has 300 staff. The Eastern Cape’s Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform staff is 3000. Is this a reflection of their relative importance for the President?
There is also no training in this complex field.
There are many would-be and experienced civil servants in the province, but there is still no formal degree or diploma in land administration and reform by which they can capacitate themselves.
The actual policy: Take title from whites, don’t give title to blacks. The redistribution leg of land reform had a target of 30% (based on what?) of white farms. By 2016 it had reached only about 10%.
But even that is now questionable as in 2010 the policy changed from giving title to land reform beneficiaries to giving leases.
The land redistribution programme no longer gives title to farms acquired by DRDLR for so-called beneficiaries, but only three-year leases.
This is exactly the same system used in Ciskei in 1980s, where the Peddie south farms remain state land to this day and are now under restitution claims.
It also echoes Zimbabwe where no titles have ever been issued on resettlement schemes. These remain state land.
The Proactive Land Aquisition strategy (PLAS) allocates a three-year lease, then bureaucrats decide if you are a farmer , and perhaps then you may be given title.
It is a clear policy of state land acquisition, not constitutional land reform.
It is also ironic that the favoured model for South Africa land reform is that of large (white) commercial farm units. No farms have been sub-divided into smallholder farms suitable for beginner or subsistence farmers.
In Zimbabwe’s initial resettlement after independence these were successful reform models. Yet South Africa sticks to 19th century surveyed farm units and boundaries.
There are also no records or even estimates of private black farm purchasers outside of the land reform programme – which would provide lessons for what works and what the problems are.
Why is DRDLR not analysing the Elliot and Komga districts where the 30% target was exceeded years ago? Is there a difference between titled and leased farms?
There has never been a list of potential beneficiaries to demonstrate that the politically touted “land hunger” actually exists, or to enable planning.
What land do beneficiaries want? Where? What size? For what purpose? How many with a constitutional right to land want a place of their own regardless of use or size, but have been forgotten in the shift of government’s emphasis to black commercial farmers.?
Insufficient co-ordinated farmer support is another major weakness – even between agriculture and land reform departments. Extension services are now so poor that the private sector has replaced government through GrainSA, Hortgro or NGOs such as Mngcube in the area of livestock veterinary services.
Yet emerging farmers face massive challenges. For example, Eskom has, over the last five years, quoted an emerging farmer from R400000 to R1200000 to connect irrigation supplies crossing his farm to a neighbouring village. But no thought has been given by the government to possibly subsidising this as part of an integrated support package.
Farming is also not about what you can grow, it’s about what you can sell. For formal channels land reform harvests are too small; supermarkets are pricemakers wanting consistent large volumes. Neither suits the beneficiaries.
Municipal fresh markets, informal traders are the best options for beneficiaries, but no there is no government support relating these two to land reform farmers.
What can be done: Actual political commitment; co-ordinated post-settlement support; subdivision and the creation of small farms; land rights must be given to the disadvantaged – people need a place of their own to live regardless of the use; delegate authority to at least the province, but eventually to municipalities. This requires constitutional change; lessons must be taken from black private farm purchasers; and there must be training and qualifications for those venturing into this field.
Mike Coleman is a specialist in land, rural development and agricultural planning in the Eastern Cape
k In the headline in yesterday’s piece in this space the public protector’s name was incorrectly spelt. She is of course, Busisiwe Mkhwebane. We regret the error – the editor
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