AFTER the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and the release of Nelson Mandela, the National Party Government of F.W. de Klerk initiated measures to end centuries of apartheid — a system supported by the Land Acts.  

The Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act was promulgated in order to bring an end to the Land Acts, and came into operation on June 30 1991.

A declining economy, during the second half of the 1980s in South Africa, was further damaged by striking indigenous workers in the gold and diamond mines — these being the main source of the nation’s wealth.

In 1989, in ill health, President P.W. Botha was persuaded to step down and, in his place, de Klerk, a much younger man, was elected by the ruling National Party.

Meanwhile, de Klerk, in a speech in Parliament on February 2 1990, astounded South Africans and the world by announcing radical changes in the country.  

He proposed to dismantle apartheid, to free political prisoners, to lift the ban on the ANC and PAC, and in effect, to introduce a new era of consultation and dialogue. 

Nine days after President de Klerk’s speech, Nelson Mandela was released from prison.  

The restitution of land was one of the promises made by the African National Congress (ANC) when it came to power in South Africa in 1994. 

The white-minority apartheid government’s ultimate aim was a policy of ‘separate development’ and it created ‘homelands’ or ‘national state’ for each ethnic group in SA.

Shortly after the Union of SA was formed, this policy was given legislative backing by the Natives Land Act of 1913 

In 1955, the Tomlinson Commission advised to the National Party Government to give freehold title to the black population in these ‘scheduled’ areas; this marked the birth of the ‘homelands’ policy whereby black groups in SA were granted homelands with their own semi-independent governments (see Houghton 1956). 

Still, customary tenure remained the dominant form in the reserve areas. 

In 1976, Transkei became the first homeland to gain its independence from SA.  

While the South African Government regarded these homelands as independent countries, they had to convince the majority of indigenous South Africans and the rest of the world of their independent status.

In the early 1980s, the homelands represented 13 percent of the total land in SA, allocated to 89 percent of the population. By contrast, virtually all the agricultural land outside the homelands was held in freehold tenure, mainly by the white population.

In 1995, approximately 17,6 million people (58 percent of the African population) lived in the former reserves or Bantustans, on 13,6 percent of the land. 

The remaining 22,4 million South Africans lived on the 86 percent of land formerly owned or controlled by white settlers.  

This included 12,8 million Africans, most of whom lived in townships within commuting distance of white urban areas. 

The 3,4 million coloured (mixed race) people were spread over townships and rural reserves and approximately one million Indians lived mainly in urban townships.  

The majority of the 5,2 million whites lived in small towns, urban and metropolitan areas, while approximately 55 000 were farmers.

Comparable to Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Programme, the South African Government’s land reform policy was to redress the injustices of colonisation and apartheid.  

Additionally, it was meant to promote national reconciliation and stability; to underpin economic growth; and to improve household welfare and alleviate poverty. 

Mandela’s Government tried to tackle these issues in its Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP).  Land reform was an essential pre-condition for the success of its RDP. 

The challenge was to find a way of redistributing land to the needy while at the same time maintaining public confidence in the land market.  

The proposed land reform process was to focus on three areas: restitution, land tenure reform and land redistribution.

Restitution was concerned with the relocation of some 3,5 million people dispossessed by racially discriminatory legislation and practice.   

It took the form of restoration of land from which claimants were dispossessed, the provision of alternative land, payment of compensation and/or a combination of the above measures.

The ANC Government’s proposed monetary compensation for individuals to be removed from the land proved to be very unsuccessful.

This was because one of the most controversial elements in the land reform proposals was the clause allowing the government to expropriate land at payments below market value.

The policy shifted to redistribution with secure land tenure. Land tenure reform is a system of recognising people’s right to own land and therefore control the land. 

The purpose of the land tenure reform was to extend security of tenure to all South Africans under diverse forms of tenure.   

Citizens were supported to choose the form of tenure most appropriate to their needs and conditions. The government committed itself to legally recognising communal and group tenure to institute interim protective measures in order to reduce tenure insecurity among holders of informal rights. 

Redistribution involved assisting poor people to obtain credit to purchase land, in addition to grants and subdividing agricultural land in order that land aspirations, economic development and ecological conservation were served at the same time with redistribution.   

Based largely on wiling-buyer-wiling-seller arrangements, redistribution was the most important component of land the reform in SA.  

Redistribution was to provide the majority of the indigenous poor with land for residential and productive purposes in order to improve their livelihood 

Initially, land was bought from its owners (willing seller) by the government (willing buyer) and redistributed in order to maintain public confidence in the land market.  

However, the willing-seller-willing-buyer principle was slow since it took a long time to negotiate land price with the existing land owners.

Land transfer schemes, based on a willing-buyer-willing-seller basis was created to promote the gradual purchase of land by Africans. Although this system has worked successfully in various other countries in the world, in SA, it proved to be very difficult to implement. 

This has been attributed to the fact that many owners do not actually see the land they are purchasing and are not involved in the important decisions made at the commencement of negotiations and/or the purchase. 

Communities, in many cases, were expected to pool their resources to negotiate, buy and jointly hold land under a

formal title deed.

In 2000, the South African Government decided to review and change the redistribution and tenure process to a more decentralised and area-based planning process; the idea being to have local integrated development plans in 47 districts — that, hopefully, meant more community participation and more redistribution taking place. 

This system, however, also come with various concerns and challenges.  

These include the use of third parties, agents accredited by the state and held accountable to the government. 

The result has been local land holding elites dominating the system in many of these areas. The government, however, remained hopeful that the land reform process would move faster …with improved identification and selection of beneficiaries, better planning of land and ultimately greater productivity of the land acquired….”

Dr Michelina Rudo Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant lecturer and specialist hospitality interior decorator.  She is a published author in her field.  For comments e-mail: linamanucci@gmail.com