Deputy President Paul Mashatile on Thursday announced a significant acceleration in the land reform initiatives. Acknowledging past delays, Mashatile emphasised the critical need for land in agriculture and housing development.
“We are fast-tracking land reform as we speak,” said Mashatile, who was fielding questions from members of Parliament.
“We know that people need land to farm. They need land to build houses and so on. We have already accepted that we started the programme in the previous years, moving a bit slower. But where we are now, we are accelerating.”
Highlighting the historical significance of land in political and social struggles, Mashatile said “Land is everything”.
The Struggle was for land
I recall when I was young and growing up in the Struggle, I was always taught the struggle is always the struggle for land.
“So when you come from that kind of political education, there’s no way you can’t be serious about land reform, because the Struggle has always been the struggle for land.”
He urged the public to stay informed and anticipate visible changes in the pace of land reform activities. “So watch and see what we will be doing. We are moving now with speed.”
EFF MP Nazier Paulsen told Mashatile that land reform had stalled and that over the past three decades, only 10% of the land had been returned to natives at significant cost to the taxpayer.
Paulsen said the land restitution program was a failure. “Have you considered reviewing the land reform program in its entirety to fast track the return of land to natives? If so, do you think such a fast-track land reform programme can work if the premise still remains that we compensate white settlers for stolen land?” he asked.
Mashatile replied: “One of the things that we did immediately was to set up an interministerial committee on land reform and agriculture, which is now in place, as I said earlier, but there’s another institution we are setting up.”
He introduced the new institution as the Land Reform and Agriculture Development Agency.
“It’s going to do exactly that, because you’re quite right. When you implement a program, you can’t sit and say, I’m implementing a program for the next 10 years. You do always have to monitor and, at some point, review if the program is not moving according to the way you want to, so it is something that we will look at.”
Delays are due to split departments
He said delays in setting up the agency were a result of the land reform and agriculture departments being split. “We are sorting that quickly to say where it will reside properly and what we’ll call it. So it should be done sooner,” he added.
MK Party parlimentary leader John Hlophe wanted Mashatile to concede that the absence of a bill relating to expropriation of land without compensation, “rather than this vague and deceptive notion of nil compensation,” was a clear indication of the government’s unwillingness to address the issue of land reform.
Nil compensation
Hlophe said that given the ANC conference resolutions and overwhelming demand of the masses in terms of submissions to Parliament, the MK Party held a view that “the nil compensation notion amounts to no more than a sell-out posture.”
“If you do not agree that it is a sell-out posture, kindly clarify to us how nil compensation fulfils the spirit of genuine land redistribution as envisioned by the people of this country and as contemplated in your own conference resolution and The Freedom Charter,” he added.
“The ANC conference acknowledged and accepted the fact that we could not amend the Constitution as we wanted to.
“In fact, they said, speed up that process. Because we had an old Expropriation Act. We needed a new one that, in them, in a way, will take into account some of the things that we could not achieve by amending the Constitution.”
He said the people may have issues with the wording thereof, “but the intention is to achieve exactly that, that we need to be able to expropriate land without compensation, where applicable.” Nil compensation meant you don’t pay, he said.
“I’ll check what the Oxford Dictionary says, But, but you don’t pay. So it means it is expropriation, and where applicable, the government will ensure that we don’t pay,” Mashatile said.
