SA moots new land policy

 JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s government on Monday said it plans to introduce a new draft policy on land tenure this year aimed at quickening the country’s snail-paced transfer of land to landless black people.

 Thousands of poor blacks are still waiting for the ANC government to deliver on its promise on coming to power in 1994 when it set itself an ambitious target of redistributing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014.

 With four years before the delivery date the South African government has only acquired about 4 percent of land from private owners for redistribution, and says it needs to accelerate the process amid growing unrest among the poor landless blacks.

 The huge cost of acquiring land – estimated at R75 billion for 82 million hectares of land – as well as problems in negotiating land prices under a “willing-buyer, willing-seller” policy have prompted the government to
 rethink its ambitious programme.

 Land Affairs Minister Gugile Nkwinti said his department was working on a policy framework that would set out how the government should go about reversing inequalities in land ownership in which the white minority holds 87 percent of commercial farmland while black South Africans only own 13 percent.

 “We are going to present to Parliament, very soon, a green paper . . .  where we open the debate about reviewing the whole land tenure system in South Africa . . . that’s the elephant in the room,” Nkwinti told reporters.

 “We must open the debate . . . on the 87 percent to 13 percent split in land ownership in South Africa,” Nkwinti said.

 He said the green paper, which would be used as a framework for future legislation, was almost complete and would be taken to Cabinet before the end of March, before going to Parliament for approval.

 “We are looking at finalising the whole process . . . (by) March 31 2012,” he said.

 South Africa – just like Zimbabwe – inherited an unjust land tenure system from previous white-controlled governments under which the bulk of the best arable land was reserved for whites while blacks were forced to crowd on mostly semi-arid and infertile soils.

 But South Africa, which has one of Africa’s biggest farming sectors and its biggest economy, has repeatedly said it will not follow the example of Zimbabwe where President Robert Mugabe seized most of the farms owned by that country’s about 4 500 white commercial farmers and gave them over to blacks.

 Harare refused to pay for land, saying whites had in the first place stolen the land from blacks. The Zimbabwe administration said it would only pay for improvements on farms such as buildings, boreholes, dams and roads – and that it would determine the levels of compensation to be paid to farmers.