HomeOld_PostsHas South Africa taken a cue from Zim…Land Expropriation Bill passed

Has South Africa taken a cue from Zim…Land Expropriation Bill passed

Published on

SLIGHTLY two decades after the end of apartheid, the land question remains a thorny issue in South Africa.
Many feel the ANC-led government has failed people dispossessed of their land during the apartheid era.
However, this is about to change.
Last week, the South African parliament passed the Land Expropriation Bill which will pave way for the government to intensify land redistribution processes and achieve equity in land ownership.
If passed into law, the Act will allow the government to make mandatory land purchases from whites and redistribute it to address the apartheid era imbalances.
Recent research by land activists showed that in 1994, due to colonial dispossession and apartheid, 87 percent of South African land was owned by whites with only 13 percent in the hands of blacks.
The new Act will end land ownership inequalities, economic deprivation and subjugation that had condemned the dispossessed and undermined South Africans’ dignity in their land of birth.
The Bill, in the works since 2008, replaces the 1975 Expropriation Act of the Apartheid Era.
The Bill empowers the State to expropriate land for public purpose or in the public interest through a just and equitable compensation.
It brings to an end the willing seller-willing buyer system that ‘impeded the state from exercising the right to expropriate land without the consent of the owner’.
The State will now be allowed to expropriate by paying an amount determined by the Valuer-General, even without the owner consenting to the amount offered or the expropriation itself.
The willing buyer-willing seller principle has in the past forced government to pay extortionate amounts for land, frustrated the redistribution process and hamstrung its ability to achieve redistribution targets.
Zimbabwe had the indignity of having to wait for a decade after the Lancaster House Agreement to distribute land to its people after a clause was inserted into its Constitution.
It appears South Africa took a leaf from its northern neighbouring country Zimbabwe to achieve a more equitable balance of wealth.
Zimbabwe’s Land Reform and Resettlement Programme is an inspiration to the landless and down-trodden all over the world.
The successful Land Reform Programme stands in stark contrast to South Africa, where barely 10 percent of farm land has been redistributed since that country attained independence in 1994.
The Land Redistribution Programme in Zimbabwe saw over 400 000 black households, who were previously settled on marginal, infertile land, benefitting from the previously 4 000 white-owned farms.
The once white-dominated commercial farming sector is now an entire preserve of the black majority, who are now in the driving seat with production levels rising.
Thus to black South Africans, Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Programme and the on-going Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Programme are the hallmark of enduring leadership.
With council elections coming up in August, the African National Congress (ANC) has promised to expedite the process of implementing the Expropriation Bill.
In a statement, the ANC said: “The passing of the Bill by parliament is historic and heralds a new era of intensified land distribution programme to bring long-awaited justice to the dispossessed majority of South Africans.”
Since 1994, about eight million hectares (equal to eight to 10 percent) of the total of 86 million hectares of white-owned farmland have been transferred to black South Africans through land restitution and redistribution.
The total is only a third of the 30 percent targeted by the ANC under the willing buyer-willing seller scheme and a parallel process of ‘land claims’ by individuals or communities dispossessed under white rule.
Government’s initial target in 1994 was to transfer 30 percent of agricultural land by 1999, but slow progress led to the target date being moved to 2014.
Several thousand large rural restitution claims are yet to be resolved and about
20 000 settled restitution claims have yet to be implemented.
South African white-owned and international media have already begun to describe the Land Expropriation Bill as a ‘mistake with dire consequences’.
They say it will bring about ‘poverty, starvation, food shortages, investor flight, while infrastructure will crumble’.
As expected, whites have castigated the Land Expropriation Bill.
Meanwhile, a fortnight ago, former South African president Thabo Mbeki hailed Zimbabweans for taking the land issue seriously and making it part of their national consciousness.
His remarks came in the wake of media reports recently that a group of five Zimbabwean professionals based in South Africa had seized an opportunity to till a piece of land whose owner had stopped cultivating in the Western Cape.
The compliments by the former South African president are an indication Zimbabwe was right in carrying out its Land Reform Programme, which sent an unequivocal message to the world on the importance of land in tackling poverty and enhancing social equity.
Since independence, the ANC has allowed itself to be held hostage to demands of the rich white minority who are controlling the economy.
Time and again the South African government has had to choose: To side with the landless black majority or with the rich white minority.
Perhaps the landless black majority in South Africa will finally have something to write home about – land.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

More like this

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading