DA rejects Land Reform Panel’s “high-risk, low-reward” report

The Democratic Alliance (DA)  believes that legal and thorough land reform is essential in South Africa. However, as all indicators make clear, multiple failures and corruption of the ANC government over 25 years have brought land reform to its knees, and now the political play to expropriate land is a last desperate bandage on a very serious injury.

The DA therefore rejects the outcomes of the multi-disciplinary advisory panel on land reform and agriculture, with regards to land expropriation without compensation and other untenable suggestions it makes. Its suggestions are high-risk, and at best promise low-reward for those in need of meaningful land reform.

The presidential panel, headed by Vuyo Mahlati, was not unanimous in giving the green light for the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution, for the expropriation of land without compensation. The panel’s outcomes therefore should not be seen to unanimously support expropriation of land.

Worse still, the report rejects providing land title and security of tenure to South Africans living on communal land. The DA is highly dismayed by this outcome. Denying title to communal land perpetuates the wrongs of our past, and denies ownership of land to hundreds of thousands of people.

The report’s key recommendations which would be disastrous for our economy and investor confidence if implemented include:

  • Amending of the Constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation (not a unanimous finding);
  • Relocating the department to the Presidency, providing the President greater control over land reform, despite entire departments and ministries of officials employed by the state already to handle this – we believe instead that President Ramaphosa must either trust his ministers and departments, or replace them; and,
  • Rejecting private titling of communal land, which would potentially deny hundreds of thousands of South Africans the right to own property in their own name.

These are high-risk, low-reward positions for the panel to have taken. The majority endorsement of land expropriation without compensation will further batter our ailing economy, and the suggestion to move land reform to the Presidency will undermine the entire department and the minister, and would move this crucial function to an office without the specializations necessary to execute.

We also cannot understand how an audit of foreign land ownership would advance land reform. The two are unrelated, and such an audit would thus be an enormous waste of limited public money.

The DA will carefully study the full report with a view to tabling a comprehensive alternative, in keeping with our long-held position on advancing land reform without expropriation. We unequivocally support the legal and constitutionally outlined processes for land reform. However, the ANC cannot continue to pin its land reform failures of the past 25 years on the Constitution.

If land reform is not approached correctly, the consequences will be disastrous. The DA will continue to unashamedly fight to protect our Constitution, while ensuring land ownership for more South Africans.

Forget the slogans – only one party is fighting for real land reform, and that’s the DA

Fellow South Africans,

Reconciliation Day is a day on which we celebrate our unity as a nation. We remember our history, and we reflect on the path we have already travelled towards a more just society.

But we must ask ourselves today: How quickly are we reconciling as a nation, and are we even still moving in the right direction? Because at times it feels like we are drifting further apart from each other.

We’ve already dealt with structural racism through legislation, but we must now deal with our attitudes towards each other. We must find better ways of listening to and hearing each other. True reconciliation is only possible through proper dialogue, and this is crucial if we want to work together to fix our country.

There are many things we can do to build a society that is more fair and equal. There are many ways we can unlock economic opportunities for people and bridge the historic divides that still lie between us.

One such thing is ensuring that young people get a foot on the jobs ladder by offering them internships, apprenticeships and the chance to do a year of national civilian service. Another is fixing our broken education system. And yet another important intervention is sustainable land reform.

I know that most South Africans want these things, and there are many men and women in our country who are committed to building an inclusive and unified society. But not everyone is working towards this goal, and these are the people we must watch out for.

Our political landscape is full of fake revolutionaries who merely pretend to care about poverty and disempowerment. Dishonest politicians who exploit the real frustrations and hardships of people for their own power and wealth.

They create the illusion that they stand on the side of the poor. Some of them will even go as far as wearing the overalls of the working class or the uniforms of domestic workers as part of this illusion, but these are just props and costumes for their act.

Here in South Africa, both the ANC and the EFF fall into this category. There’s a word for such people. We call them populists, and they prey on vulnerable people’s desperation. They make promises that sound too good to be true, because they are too good to be true. They have no intention of ever fulfilling these promises.

They will say whatever they think people want to hear in order to get their votes. They will use language and names that sound progressive, while robbing their own people blind.

They speak of Radical Economic Transformation, while they really mean Radical Wealth Accumulation.

They speak of Black Economic Empowerment, while they really mean ANC Crony Enrichment.

And they speak of Land Reform and Land Restitution, while they really mean state control and ownership of all land, including the land owned by poor South Africans.

Fellow South Africans, we all know that land is a very important and emotive issue in South Africa, and rightly so. For centuries, the majority of our people were denied the right to not only live where they wanted to live, but to own their own land, and to pass this land on to their children. Justice and redress demands that we correct this, and that we do so quickly.

When done right, this is something that will build a stronger, united South Africa. A South Africa where more people have access to the economy and where more people can build their own wealth.

But in the hands of the populists, it simply becomes a tool for dividing people and whipping up anger. When both the EFF and ANC talk about land reform, their only goal is to create a divide – an enemy – and then exploit the issue for votes.

They don’t want South Africans to own their own land. They don’t want you to be able to grow an investment, access capital or pass this on to your children. They want you to live at the mercy of the state – forever a tenant.

There is only one party in South Africa that has been fighting for real, sustainable land reform, and that party is the DA.

Forget about the slogans for a moment and consider the facts. Since 2009 the DA has handed over more than 100,000 title deeds in the Western Cape alone. That’s over a hundred thousand Western Cape families that now own their property.

In the past four years the Western Cape’s DA government has supported 357 land reform projects. The province boasts an agricultural land reform success rate of over 60%, while elsewhere in South Africa only 10% of these projects succeed. That’s what I mean when I say sustainable land reform.

And the DA has done all of this within the framework of the Constitution. It was never necessary to break our Constitution – that was all just part of the ANC and EFF’s populist campaign.

But if you really want to get an idea of what the DA has done for land reform and restitution, then you need to speak to the individuals and communities we have been fighting for. And we have some of those people here with us today.

People like David Rakgase, who has been leasing his Limpopo farm from the government since 1991, and has been battling to become the owner for the past two decades.

Mr Rakgase has exhausted every possible route to become a land-owner, and the ANC has blocked him at every turn. But last year the DA took up his fight, and we have brought his case all the way to the State Attorney. We will not rest until he has the title deed to his farm in his hands.

Or you can ask the people of Gwatyu in the Eastern Cape. We have representatives of their Communal Property Association with us today. Their efforts these past two years to have ownership of 42 000 hectares of Gwatyu farms transferred from the government to the Gwatyu CPA have been blocked time and time again.

Last month Minister Nkoana-Mashabane missed the deadline to hand over the report into the land rights enquiry to the Gwatyu community. If she doesn’t comply and hand over the report, the DA will not hesitate to take legal action to compel her to act.

Again, the issue of the Gwatyu land has nothing to do with the Constitution. It could have, and should have, been resolved years ago within the framework of the Constitution.

That is why I say: Beware of those who use land as a rallying cry and who want to amend our Constitution. They’re not doing this to make any of you property owners. They are doing so to take control of all South Africans’ property, whether black or white, rich or poor.

And while they are doing so, the DA continues to fight for real land reform. On this site here, Mayor Mashaba has decided to take rental property which had fallen into disrepair over years of ANC neglect, and to fix them up and hand them over with full title to those who have occupied the flats for a specific period of time.

While the ANC threatens to take away people’s property rights, the DA continues to make people property owners.

While the ANC blames the Constitution and property rights for its own failures, the DA fights to protect the Constitution and the property rights of all South Africans.

While the ANC and the EFF use land as a cheap political tool, the DA is committed to putting title deeds to both urban and agricultural land in the hands of the people.

Because that’s how you empower people and give them a foot in the door of the economy. That’s how you build an inclusive, prosperous South Africa.

ANC rushes land expropriation Bill ahead of elections

The DA notes that Cabinet has approved the new Land Expropriation Bill, which now stands to be gazetted this week and to be followed by a sixty-day comment period till February.

The ANC’s fake concern with land reform intensifies greatly with every election cycle. Rushing these kinds of amendments will only offer a disservice to South Africans, as such a bill has far-ranging consequences and all decisions related to it need to be made with care and consideration.

The DA is furthermore concerned that the failing ANC is using expropriation as an electioneering tool. This being based on the evidence provided by the ANC itself in previous elections, which did the very same with the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act that was pushed through before the 2014 elections. The urgency attached to this Bill is entirely arbitrary.

The process of changing Section 25 of the constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation is still ongoing and there is no objective reason why the process should be rushed or why the Sixth Parliament cannot consider the proposed constitutional amendments before this Bill is passed.

This is pure political expedience.

The DA wants South Africans to own their land and property in a South Africa which suffers from a history of black people being denied land ownership. We do not need to change the Constitution to address this, we need government action. What we most certainly do not need, is the EFF’s plan to make government the owner of all property and land, forcing citizens to rent their homes and land from government for life.

The DA believes that people must own their land because they are the ones who best know how to use their land. Let’s bring land reform that makes the people land owners, not life-long tenants. Lets ensure that this process is done so correctly and not rushed as an electioneering tool to garner votes.

Our success in the Western Cape has shown that we are serious about land reform and it can be done within the current constitutional framework.

Desperate ANC doing all it can to bypass legitimate Parliamentary process on land

The ANC’s attempt to undermine the recently concluded Constitutional Review Committee’s (CRC) land hearings by running a parallel process through its branches to influence the outcome of the hearings is dangerous and undermines the authority of Parliament.

According to reports today, the ANC top 6 gained access to the approximately 700 000 written submissions made by the public on Expropriation without compensation (EWC) at the end of July. Most of these submissions opposed a change of Section 25 of the Constitution.

In order to ‘cook the books’, the ANC resolved to instruct its branches to collect more submissions from its members to support the ANC’s position, for possible submission to the CRC. This is despite the deadline for submissions being closed.

The work of the CRC is entirely funded by Parliament, not the ANC and the fact that the ANC irregularly gained access to these submissions before Parliament did, utterly undermines the current Parliamentary process. This proves that changing the Constitution to allow for EWC is just an electioneering effort that seems to have backfired.

The ANC has also apparently earmarked 139 farms, belonging to farmers who previously rejected offers under the ‘willing buyer, willing seller model’, to be expropriated without compensation. While some compensation will be offered, the value will be determined by the valuer-general, expropriation notices could be issued if the offer is rejected, and then tested in court. Reports indicate that this process is already underway, again bypassing Parliamentary processes.

The ANC is in panic mode after President Cyril Ramaphosa prematurely announced that the ANC will move to expropriate land without compensation and amend the Constitution. Parliament, which is meant to serve all South Africans, cannot allow ANC political expediency to trump the will of the people.

It is very clear that the ANC proposed amendment to the Constitution is being pursued with the intention of being railroaded through Parliament not for the good of South Africa, but in a desperate attempt to bolster its election campaign.

South Africa cannot be held to ransom by a party which has decided to go down the path of populism to salvage its waning political fortunes to the detriment of the national economy.

The ANC deals a double blow to the almost 10 million unemployed South Africans

The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes tonight’s reckless and irresponsible announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa that the ANC has resolved to expropriate land without compensation and will amend the Constitution to give effect to such.

It is quite remarkable that on a day that has seen unemployment rise again to levels of a humanitarian crisis – the highest in 15 years – the ANC has decided to ramp up its efforts to undermine economic growth and job creation and play Russian roulette with the economic future of SA. This move will only serve to fuel the jobs crisis it has single-handedly created.

Successful land reform doesn’t require amending the Constitution. It requires government action. It requires eradicating corruption. And it requires economic certainty. The ANC – and President Ramaphosa – have failed in this and have failed the people of South Africa.

In countries where such reckless and populist policies have been implemented, their economies have suffered, and unemployment and poverty has skyrocketed. It appears the ANC is desperate to follow suit, and see our economy face another credit rating downgrade.

We will oppose this move in Parliament with all our might. We support land reform that makes South Africans owners and participants in a growing, thriving economy. We will never support a land policy that takes economic power away from South Africans and hands it to a corrupt government.

Our demand is for change that accelerates land reform, by ensuring more South Africans are owners of property as individuals. This is how the nation will prosper and how jobs will be created.

This ANC government is not capable of managing the real problems South Africa faces. Nor is its able to build a modern, successful and competitive economy that creates jobs. Instead it has resorted to failed policies that belong in dictatorships of failed states.

A true “stimulus package” ought to include actual reform that sees cuts to the bloated cabinet, and governance and structure reforms to State Owned Entities (SOEs).

Tonight’s announcement by the President confirms that no matter who leads it, the ANC is the same old party. The party has run out of ideas and continues to put itself first and the South African people last.

 

The ANC and EFF are lying to the people about land ownership

It is deeply disturbing that the ANC and EFF use the land hearings that are currently taking place across the country to continue to lie to South Africans about owning land.

The DA will continue to attend these hearings and remind the people that the ANC and the EFF’s promises about land ownership are blatant lies.

The truth is simple: The ANC and EFF believe that the state should be the sole owner of land and the people must be tenants on state land. This means that South Africans – the very people who attend the land hearings in the desperate hope that they will soon become owners of land – will have no security of tenure. They will be tenants, serving the ANC and its corrupt network.

It is highly immoral of the ANC and EFF to cultivate hope with desperate South Africans that they will one day own land. How many of the thousands of people that we have seen attending these hearings over the last weeks truly understand that the ANC and EFF’s proposal to change the constitution to allow the government to expropriate land without compensation will have the exact opposite outcome?

Our people suffer from a history of being denied land ownership. Millions of South Africans desperately yearn for the dignity that owning land and having a proper roof over their heads will provide. Yet, the ANC and EFF openly continue to peddle their cruel and cynical lie that this would be made possible through amending our constitution.

The DA believes that it is not the constitution that failed the people. It is the ANC. This is confirmed by the Kgalema Motlanthe panel that found that there was evidence that “a degree of elite capture has taken place in land reform in general” and that the implementation of restitution under the ANC had been extremely poor.

Our message to South African attending these hearings will continue to be that had the DA’s plan for land reform been instituted only a decade ago, hundreds of thousands of South Africans would have been the proud owners of land by now. We will tell them that the DA will prioritise land reform in the budget and cut back on unnecessary spending, where the ANC government is spending more on VIP protections than it does on land reform.

We will remind them that under a DA government communal land will be given to those living on it and title deeds will be given to urban housing beneficiaries. Voluntary incentivised partnerships will enable farmworkers to own shares in the farms they work on.

Under a DA government:

  • You will own your land, not rent it;
  • Your property rights will be protected;
  • You will own your RDP house;
  • Your land claim will be settled; and
  • You will receive the support to farm successfully

The DA will not tolerate the ANC and the EFF’s lies.

We will continue to use every resource at our disposal to tell South Africans the truth about land reform and uncover the lies of the ANC and EFF.

Department of Land Reform and its entities have 20 million hectares of land

Do you support land expropriation without compensation? Make your voice heard: LandOwnership.co.za

Replies to Parliamentary questions posed to the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) have revealed that the Department and its entities have nearly 20.7 million hectares of land.

In its reply to my question, Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane reveals that her department owns approximately 13 588 879 hectares of land and has exclusive rights to another 2 222 920 hectares. It furthermore states that the Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB) owns approximately 2 000 000 hectares and has exclusive rights to approximately 2 882 000 hectares more.

The report of the High-Level Panel (HLP), chaired by former President Kgalema Motlanthe, found that the “land area of South Africa” was approximately 122.3 million hectares.

This astonishing admission by the DRDLR follows similar replies from other departments, notably the Department of Public Works (DPW) which revealed that it has some 1.9 million hectares of unutilised land, and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries which revealed that it administers some 73 000 hectares of farmland on behalf of the DPW. The Department of Public Enterprises, which has vast amounts of land, is yet to respond to the question.

This information begs the question: why is the ANC pushing for Section 25 of the Constitution to be amended to allow for expropriation without compensation when government is sitting on vast tracks of urban and rural land, much of it suitable for development and/or agriculture?

Adding to the confusion is a recent statement by the ANC Secretary-General, Ace Magashule, that “[w]e are rolling out implementation of policy of land expropriation without compensation, we are not waiting”, and the resolution by the ANC, following the party’s two-day land summit in May, that Parliament must urgently pass the Expropriation Bill, ostensibly to test the limits of Section 25.

Meanwhile, the DRDLR responded to another DA question by confirming that (1) government has not determined the land that will be earmarked to be expropriated without compensation, and (2) will be guided by the outcome of the Constitutional Review Committee which has been tasked with considering possible amendments to Section 25 and is only set to report back to the National Assembly on 11 September.

Confusion reigns.

The DA believes that the ANC is continuing to use expropriation without compensation as a convenient ruse to deflect attention away from their massive, two-decade long failure to address land reform in South Africa. Indeed, the HLP Report found that “increasing evidence of corruption by officials, the diversion of the land reform budget to elites, lack of political will, and lack of training and capacity have proved more serious stumbling blocks to land reform.”

The DA wants South Africans to be real owners of land with the right to choose, unlike the ANC and the EFF who want the State to be landlord and the people to be permanent tenants on the land.

We look forward to advancing workable solutions and dismantling EFF populism and ANC opportunism

The DA is looking forward to engaging with stakeholders on the question of expropriation without compensation in the Constitutional Review Committee, and reporting back to the National Assembly in August, following the adoption of the EFF’s resolution on the matter yesterday.
It is our earnest hope that the Committee can consider the proposed amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution soberly and armed with the facts, away from the populism and cheap theatrics displayed in the House yesterday.
The DA is fully committed to redressing the history of violent land dispossession in South Africa, and the social and economic legacy of this dispossession which still exists in our country today.
However, the DA is unwilling to allow an opportunistic, hypocritical ANC to get away with their abject failure on land reform by diverting attention away from the fact that land reform programmes pursued since 1994 have been blighted by wide-scale corruption, inefficiency, chronic underfunding, and bad policy.
Indeed, the High Level Panel headed by former President Kgalema Motlanthe found that “the need to pay compensation has not been the most serious constraint on land reform in South Africa – other constraints, including corruption by officials, the diversion of the land reform budget to elites, lack of political will, and lack of training and capacity have proved more serious stumbling blocks to land reform”.
Government currently has some 4000 farms and vast tracts of state land available for redistribution. The ANC and EFF want to make government custodians of the land whereas the DA wants people to be owners and have title deeds to their land.
In the metros where the DA governs, we have already distributed more than 75 000 title deeds, and in the DA-led Western Cape our approach has accelerated the pace of land reform and led to the success of 62% of all land reform farms. Where the ANC governs, their success rate is only 10%, which clearly shows that the problem is with the ANC not the Constitution.
The DA will defend the Constitution and show that expropriation without compensation is not the solution to assisting the poor and marginalised in accessing land and economic opportunities.
We believe it is possible to achieve the aims of land reform and to do so in a way that truly empowers black people and strengthens the economy. We reject the opportunism of launching an attack on the Constitution to deflect from the failures of the ANC-led government.

Expropriation calls divert us from the real solution for SA – More private property rights for the poor

The Democratic Alliance will stand firmly behind the property clauses in section 25 of the Constitution and in the process stand firm behind the rights of the poor to be included in the economy.
Subsequent to the ANC’s Elective Conference the ANC has indicated that it is in favour of changes in the Constitution that will allow for expropriation without compensation.
It did so in an atmosphere of a divided ANC, increasingly seen as failing to lead South Africa out of poverty and inequality, riven with corruption and maladministration – that is trying to reposition itself as a party of radical economic transformation.
In the process it has shown again that it is unwilling to face up to the real challenges of our society, choosing diversion from the real issues rather than facing up to the real challenges in land reform.
Land Reform in South Africa is not saddled with a flawed Constitution, but is characterised by the following:

  • Enormous failure of land reform projects in its care;
  • Massive corruption and mismanagement;
  • A hesitancy to provide the poor with private title deeds;
  • Poor administration of land claims and related processes; and
  • Poor resource and budget allocation by an incapable state.

None of these issues is addressed by the calls by the ANC to amend the Constitution.
In fact, these calls are all presupposed on a bigger role for the government in effecting change – the very government that has failed in the first place.
Our Constitution has been misrepresented as protecting the property rights of a few at the expense of the many – a flawed compromise of the early nineties – rather than what it truly is; a Constitution that protects the property rights of the poor and vulnerable against arbitrary loss to a rapacious and divisive state driven by narrow interests.
It is exactly to protect against governments like what the ANC has become who repeatedly demonstrate that government policy is subservient to party interests, that the Constitution was drafted.
Rather than looking at how the Constitution can be given real effect by extending property rights to more South Africans, thus including more people in ownership in the economy, and protecting the rights of such first-time property owners, the ANC has chosen to make the poor more vulnerable and more excluded.
The DA will stand up for our country’s Constitution and property rights in the face of an ANC government which only seeks to enrich themselves at the expense of the people.