away
Ann Eveleth
The Government cannot achieve its land reform targets within existing legislative, procedural and resource limitations, according to the findings of a multi-pronged research project conducted by the National Land Committee.
Market-based restrictions, misconceived legislation, narrow legal definitions and a lack of co- ordination between different government departments are some of the obstacles identified by a series of hard-hitting research papers released last month by the committee’s NGO affiliates.
The NGOs, whose members produced the research, have been at the forefront of efforts to help landless communities access the package of land reform options produced by government in the wake of the 1994 elections.
But more than three years after the enactment of these laws, less than 1% of South Africa’s total farmland area has been redistributed to land reform’s target group – poor, black, rural households, said redistribution researcher Samuel Bonti-Ankomah.
This contrasts starkly with government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme promise to redistribute 30% of the country’s land to black hands in its first five-year term.
While Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Derek Hanekom has pointed out that land delivery is picking up pace this year, Bonti-Ankomah predicted that the 30% target would never be met within the market-based approach to which land reform is currently tied.
“The market-based approach is not appropriate for South Africa because of the huge historical imbalances due to land dispossessions and the constant inequalities of incomes,” he said.
Bonti-Ankomah suggested that the increased demand created by land reform could itself be driving up the price of land, thus further limiting the resources available for redistribution.
The average price per hectare had risen an average of 2% annually in real terms during three years of land reform – from R643 per hectare in 1994 to R873 per hectare in 1997. By contrast, land prices generally fell between 1990 and 1994, and rose only about 0,7% a year in the preceding decade.
These high land prices made it impossible for individual rural households to access significant portions of land with their R15 000 grants, forcing beneficiaries to group together in communities with varied and sometimes incompatible interests, he added.
Bonti-Ankomah said the redistribution programme would have to be augmented by other non-market measures, many of which had been implemented to varying degrees of success in countries as far afield as China, Cuba, Taiwan, and South Korea.
“The redistribution of farmland in ex- homelands, the disposal of vacant state land, and the expropriation of unutilised, underutilised and indebted farms are very popular options. Land ceilings may also be used to meet the required farmland demand. [And land taxes] can be a source of revenue for the redistribution programme,” said Bonti-Ankomah.
At least 1,3-million hectares lay idle in 1991; about 48 farmers on 35 487ha had defaulted on loan payments to the Land Bank in 1996; and the state owned an estimated 25,4-million hectares of land, suggesting these programmes could free substantial land for redistribution.
But other researchers said the provision of vacant state land for land reform had not yet gained priority status within government. Land Research Unit researchers Chris Wood and Teresa Yates blamed “confusion” within government over the definition of state land, a lack of co-ordination between government departments and the insistence of some public landholders on selling land to the highest bidder for the state’s failure to use its land effectively for land reform.
The South African National Defence Force, and the Department of Minerals and Energy were generally loath to part with land. The Departments of Public Works and Public Enterprises had a policy of selling land to the highest bidder, while the Department of Agriculture and municipalities owning commonage tended to lease their available land to commercial farmers, said Woods and Yates.
Similar confusion and resistance marked the process toward land tenure reform, with Association for Rural Advancement researcher Donna Hornby arguing that the 1995 Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act was “misconceived” and had led to increased insecurity for rural dwellers.
Most labour tenants who contacted government for help did so because they were threatened with eviction, or faced efforts to impound their cattle or reduce their ploughing space.
Often this occurred because farmers feared change, but drought and changing agricultural processes also threatened tenants.
The Act, a predecessor to the 1997 Extension of Security of Tenure Act, had an “underlying, hidden intention” to eradicate labour tenancy. However, “labour tenancy is not a backward, apartheid-specific practice, but a rational and viable component of a multiple- livelihoods strategy on the part of the poor as well as a rational labour strategy for small farmers unable to compete with other highly capitalised farmers,” argued Hornby, who called for amendments to recognise the permanency and value of the practice.
Failure to do so meant that while the Act had come too late to protect most labour tenants, it was also failing to allow and regulate new labour tenancy contracts.
And 34 months and millions of rands into the restitution process, researcher Zohra Dawood argued that the programme had “made little tangible difference” to the millions of South Africans dispossessed by apartheid-era removals.
While nearly 25 000 individuals and communities had submitted their land claims, only seven had been finalised by the Land Claims Court, she said.
“Some of the problems lie at the door of politicians, policy-makers and processes, while others can be attributed to the continued treatment of communities as a sacrosanct cohesive unit, whose interests and struggles are uniform,” added Dawood.
Other issues include the effect of budget cuts on restitution, a fairly legalistic framework, and dependence on the free market. The Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights and the Department of Land Affairs were also burdened by the “large and unexpected numbers of claims being lodged”.
n The Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights, Department of Land Affairs and the National Land Committee launched a R2-million “Stake your claim” communication campaign this week in a bid to inform people who lost land under apartheid of their rights and help them file restitution claims before the new December 31 1998 deadline. The campaign will use radio programmes and the Commuternet taxi network to help spread the word.
ENDS