Radical steps needed to right the 1913 wrong

Land ReformSkewed ownership condemns the dispossessed to poverty and frustration

THE 1913 Natives Land Act is the root cause of the racial mayhem and stubborn racial division in South Africa. That is why it is imperative that the nation rids itself of the lingering side effects of that law, which have manifested themselves in disunity and race-based poverty.

Not long ago we witnessed some of the saddest episodes in our country, including the Marikana massacre in North West and the violent farmworkers' strike in De Doorns in the Western Cape. The victims in these incidents were people from faraway areas, whose families were left behind in the countryside of other impoverished provinces.

However, the Natives Land Act did have some unintended positive consequences. Unbridled oppression forged concrete solidarity and unity among the poor and the socially marginalised indigenous people. It galvanised their resolve to resist the unjust system of government imposed on them.

Various resistance movements further reinforced the struggle against oppression. Workers organised themselves into unions to improve their working conditions, which resulted in improved living standards.

The ramifications of the act compelled the present democratic government to devise ways to improve living conditions for the previously oppressed masses.

Land ownership is an entry point to wealth creation. The native reserves were nothing but reservoirs of cheap labour for the white-owned mines and farms. The 1913 act gave white people a platform from which to increase their wealth, while at the same it degraded and destroyed black material ownership.

The Department of Land Affairs was established to address the redistribution of land and provide redress for those whose land was grabbed by the colonial and apartheid governments between 1913 and 1994.

Restitution was meant to restore land to its original owners. The victims of dispossession have a choice between getting their original land back, or obtaining alternative land in instances where schools, hospitals or even towns have been built on the original property. Those who are not interested in going back to the land are free to opt for a financial payout.

However, land distribution without subsequent material and technical support from the government proved to be our undoing during the first 16 years of our freedom.

That is why the newly established Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in 2010 added a fourth pillar for land reform, namely development, to the existing three: redistribution, restitution and tenure.

Redistribution is paramount for the just and equitable allocation of land. The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform is duty-bound to buy properties from among those that make up the 87% of South Africa's land owned by white farmers and give them to landless black people. But this process has not been without hurdles. Minister Gugile Nkwinti has had to come up with a raft of institutional proposals to propel land reform.

These include the Land Management Commission, which will be responsible for land registration and administration, and the Land Rights Management Board, which will be responsible for maintaining social stability on farms. This is intended to prevent the unlawful evictions of farmworkers or illegal land invasions.

The four tenure systems proposed in the green paper on land reform are meant to promote food security, remove the vestiges of apartheid by changing the notion that farms are for white male Afrikaners only and ensure that there is fair land allocation irrespective of gender or race.

When the proposed land tenure systems become law, the amount of land that aspirant owners may possess will be limited. This will ensure that there is land available for distribution to previously landless black people.

Many South Africans, especially black people, are yearning for land while the minority and foreigners possess thousands of hectares of land. This is why the department has proposed that foreigners be barred from owning land. Charity begins at home, as the adage goes. The country cannot afford to give land to foreigners to establish golf estates and game farms while our black people are crammed into unhygienic shacks and makeshift structures on the urban periphery. The global trend is for countries to bar foreign land ownership.

The department has also ensured that state land will be available for distribution to the landless by stipulating that it will only be leased, not sold.

The department will do away with the oppression presently prevalent in communal areas, particularly in the former homelands and rural villages. Communal land tenure is being amended to democratise the institutions in communal areas.

Recently, the National Assembly passed the Spatial Land Use Management Bill, which will assist the national government, provinces and municipalities in their development plans.

All these measures are meant to reverse the legacy of the 1913 Natives Land Act to give back land to dispossessed black people and combat poverty, inequality and unemployment.

In line with international trends, the department will reopen land claims this year to afford another opportunity to those claimants who could not lodge claims during the first window period. This will also allow those whose land was dispossessed before 1913 to lodge claims, including the descendants of the Khoi and the San, whose land was usurped long before 1913.

Communities will be afforded an opportunity to claim heritage sites and historical landmarks.

This time, aspirant land claimants will have five years to lodge their claims. The bill legalising this process has been approved by the cabinet. However, the land reform programme is experiencing its fair share of hassles, some of which emanate from the government itself - hence it is very slow.

Although the ruling party has approved and endorsed the department's land reform proposals at its conferences, some government leaders have not taken kindly to the radical changes. This has seen drafts of the department's policies and legislation moving back and forth between the cabinet and the department.

Agrarian transformation is a long, arduous task for the government. It will need a lot of patience, dedication and perseverance on the part of the victims of dispossession, who are yearning for land and emancipation from poverty. The government needs to be given time and space to pursue this goal until land inequalities and rural poverty have been assigned to the dustbin of history.

Mxotwa is a spokesman of the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform. He writes in his personal capacity