While billions are spent on arms and luxury vehicles by people in power, the impoverished still wait for land
Marianne Merten and Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
In the face of increasing land hunger among South Africa’s poor, the government has appealed for patience while pursuing strong-arm tactics against those who illegally invade land.
Many of the thousands of East Rand squatters who paid the Pan Africanist Congress R25 for their own plot of land were charged with trespassing on Thursday as the government’s legal proceedings to obtain an eviction order from the Pretoria High Court were pending.
NGOs say the land invasion must be seen in the context of electricity cut-offs in Soweto, heavy-handed removals from Alexandra, protests against slow service delivery in the Northern Cape and evictions for non-payment of services in the Cape.
“Poor people might be poor, but they are not stupid,” says National Land Committee (NLC) deputy director Tom Lebert. Most poor people keep up to date on developments like the government’s R50-billion arms deal and the acquisition of luxury vehicles by people in power.
“We need to bite the bullet. We need to wake up to the fact that transformation will have winners and losers and the losers are those who are the current land owners,” Lebert says.
He said the NLC recently called for a land summit address difficulties.
Although the government has admitted land reform has been slow, it also condems land invasions.
“If people are going to be impatient about what we are doing, then there’s going to be chaos. There are already people who have benefited. [Others] will have to wait their turn,” says Moses Moshe, spokesperson for Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza.
“In the wake of the new government we did not expect everything to go easy and quickly. It’s a process, it’s going to take time.”
But observers believe a key obstacle to land reform is the government’s failure to start the land redistribution programme that was scheduled for April.
It is hoped the programme could assist in sating land hunger, despite its focus on making land available to emerging black commercial farmers on a “willing seller, willing buyer” principle.
Other contributing factors to the lagging land reforms an expensive and decades-long process include inadequate budget allocations, delays in enacting legislation like the Land Rights Bill and additional tenure security, and an inadequate number of appropriately trained staff in the department of land affairs.
However, another land reform pillar restitution to those forcibly removed under racially discriminatory laws since 1913 has sped up over the past two years.
While only 41 of the 68 878 claims submitted to the Land Claims Commission were settled between 1995 and June 1999, the figure has increased to 12 314 as of June 15 this year. To date 113 790 people have received slightly more than 302 000ha of land. Financial compensation was paid to 76 643 people who lost land due to legislation.
The settlement rate skyrocketed following a move away from a court-based restitution system to one of administrative adjudication. Between March last year and March this year the number of settled claims rose from just less than 4 000 to 12 094.
“That is a substantial and phenomenal increase in delivery. But that is overshadowed by the slow pace of the two other programmes (redistribution and tenure security),” said chief land claims commissioner Wallace Mgoqi.
Since last year an increasing number of communities from the Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Southern Cape, the former Transkei, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga have threatened land invasions.
“Indications signs and symptoms are there’s a kind of gatvol feeling on the ground,” says Professor Ben Cousins, of the Programme of Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape.
Although land reform could not be artificially sped up and the government could not rubberstamp land invasions, it now had to seize the opportunity to address problems before the dam of expectation breaks, Cousins warns.
“You have to go in and negotiate with people. There is a legitimate need, even if its expression is not correct,” he says.
“The alarm clock is ringing. The government is pushing the off button and it starts ringing again,” Cousins warned.
PAC leaders have embarked on a nationwide campaign to occupy state land and have instructed its provincial structures to identify communities that will benefit from a land grab.
Northern Province and Eastern Cape provincial leaders told the Mail & Guardian their national leadership has told them to identify land for redistribution to landless African people.
Eastern Cape PAC leader Zingisa Mkabile says his leadership has been given direct orders to put into operation a land campaign similar to that currently taking place at Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg.
PAC national and provincial leaders are scheduled to meet this weekend to discuss their land programme. The party says it has been alarmed at the slow pace of land redistribution.
Mkabile said the Eastern Cape has a “huge shortage of land for housing. State land belongs to the people. We are targeting land owned by state enterprises like Transnet and Telkom.”
Mkabile said this view is not new in the PAC. “We came out of the national congress in April with a resolution that we should begin to identify state land and give it to communities.”
Asked about the legality of their action, Mkabile said: “It is not illegal. We know that the government will try and evict the communities, but the courts will deal with that. This land belongs to the people and the Constitution says people have a right to land.”
Northern Province PAC leader Maxwell Nemadzivhanani has called on communities to adopt Zimbabwean-style land grabs. He also wants a land summit soon.