Cyril must lead on land‚ or there will be anarchy

I hate to say I told you so‚ but there it is: I told you so. The chickens are coming home to roost‚ exactly as I said they would. What am I talking about? It’s the land issue.

There are two things we all need to keep in mind about the land debate. First‚ we just don’t know quite how bad land ownership disparity between black and white is because the state and the private sector don’t quite know themselves.

Agri SA says 26.7% of agricultural land is owned by black people and the government‚ meaning about 70% of agricultural land is in white hands. The state’s land audit says 72% of agricultural land is white-owned‚ with 24% black-owned.

Those numbers are bad. Anyone who doesn’t realise that we need to fix this is mad.

The second thing to keep in mind is this: the ANC has been in power since 1994. In that time it has done nothing to use the constitution to enable faster land reform. When it has attempted land reform it has been in a haphazard‚ half-hearted‚ inefficient and largely corrupt manner which has benefited a very small elite of politically connected individuals. The problem is not the constitution. It is the ANC’s lack of political will.

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