President Jacob Zuma should urgently clarify the government’s position on land expropriation, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday.
“It is not sufficient for President Jacob Zuma to simply state that land grabs are not ANC policy,” Democratic Alliance spokesperson Athol Trollip said in a statement.
He said Zuma should come forward as a matter of urgency and denounce the radical policies espoused by ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.
Zuma should also clarify the steps his administration would take to address the failure of his adminstration’s land reform and rural development policies.
Farm occupation
Trollip said the party was reacting to reports of the illegal occupation of a farm between QwaQwa and Harrismith, in the Eastern Cape, last week.
He said the farm was occupied by a group which alleged that Malema had given it permission to claim the land.
At a youth league conference in Johannesburg last month Malema warned ANC leaders that they must either follow the league’s policies — which included expropriation without compensation — or face removal from office.
Malema has, in the past, accused white South Africans of stealing land.
Trollip said that when the owners of the farm telephoned the police, they were told to apply for an eviction order.
He said a member of the group now occupying the farm had owned the land, but that it was sold after he failed to repay a loan from the Land Bank.
“The DA regards it as imperative that an effective land-reform programme is implemented in our country.”
However, the policies should be based on South African law and constitutional provisions which governed property ownership, said Trollip.
“Should the willing-buyer, willing-seller model be abandoned, the impact on food security and our economy as a whole would be devastating,” he said.
Trollip said he would write to Zuma and Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Gugile Nkwinti to ascertain when the Land Reform Green Paper would be released.
He would also call on Zuma to publicly put an end to the “dangerous speculation” regarding land reform.
‘Nothing new’
Meanwhile, Zuma’s announcement of a “new trajectory for land reform in South Africa” at trade union federation Cosatu’s central committee in Midrand last week was nothing new, according to trade unionists and non-governmental organisations working in the land sector.
They doubted the authenticity of his remarks on land reform, with some commentators describing them as reactionary, defensive and sidestepping the important issue of security of tenure. They said his remarks amounted to recycling the green paper.
Hot on the heels of Malema’s controversial statements, Zuma said reform would include “precarious tenure” for non-South African landowners who fail to meet certain conditions.
A pivotal point in Zuma’s speech was the announcement that a three-tier land-tenure system was among the key proposals in the green paper, expected to be sent to Cabinet for consideration this month.
In the first tier, state and public land will be available on a leasehold basis. In the second, other land will be available on a freehold basis, with limitations or ceilings on how much land a person or body may own. In the third, policy will provide for precarious tenure for non-South Africans, meaning that the land could revert to the state should they not meet certain obligations. – Sapa and Staff reporter