Land Redistribution: The Pros and Cons

While land dispossession under the white minority rule was attained forcefully through violence and racially discriminative legislations, the present democratic government is looking to redistribute land back to black people without tainting gains of national building achieved since the ushering of democracy 19 years ago.

The year 2013 marks the centenary of the 1913 Native Land Act. The redistribution progress came in for evaluation when the cabinet approved a policy to establish the valuer-general office which will determine the proper market value of land.

This has been a stumbling block in fast-tracking land reform because white farmers have been selling their land to the government at astronomical prices, making it difficult to redistribute land to as many blacks as possible.

In 1994, just after the introduction of the democratic rule, the newly-elected ANC led government was faced with the task of dealing with a legacy of centuries of land dispossession. A ‘willing buyer willing seller’ policy was adopted as the preferred method of land reform.

The land reform commission established new legislative frameworks governing the process through the lodging of land claims, expropriation, redistribution and restitution.

The government had intended to redistribute 30 percent of agricultural land to Black people by 2014. However, the process of land reform has been slow due to the inflating of prices by farmers on identified land and the falling into disuse of land given to Black farmers.

The African Farmers’ Association of South Africa (Afasa) has since urged President Jacob Zuma to fast-track amendments to the Green Paper on Land Reform to do away with the ‘willing-buyer, willing-seller’ principle used in land reform transactions. The ANC also adopted a resolution at its Mangaung national elective conference last year to do away with the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ policy and aggressively fast-track land reform and redistribution.

Now there is a dispute on whether the government has done justice in redistribution of that land; if there is enough land available to redistribute from white farmers who hold the majority of land and whether the proper market value is used to buy and sell such land.

The Free State rural development and land reform department earlier this year reported that it had used about R1.5-billion to buy land and had redistributed about 4 000 hectares (h4) of land for Free Staters since the inception of land reform in 1994. The province claimed to have achieved the progress in 840 projects which benefited  8 015 people, 2 304 of whom are women.

Last month the cabinet approved the policy to establish the office of the valuer-general. The valuer-general will be an independent statutory body that will assist in the valuation of land to ensure proper market value of the land which is available in the country without relying solely on the private sector, and keep records of the value of land.

The policy still needs to be taken to parliament in the form of a bill for the office to be established formally. The establishment of the office comes as a result of the absence of a nationwide comprehensive, reliable hub for the assessment of property values in the country.

The valuer-general will be responsible for issues such as provision of fair and consistent land values for rating and taxing purposes and determining the financial compensation following expropriation under the Expropriation Act or any other policy and legislation which is in compliance with the Constitution.

“This office will also serve as an intervention that will help the department in dealing with the problem of people who inflate land prices when selling to the department,” explained the department.

It said the valuer-general would also be responsible for the provision of specialist valuation and property advice to government, setting standards and monitoring service delivery and undertaking market and sales analysis; setting guidelines, norms and standards required to validate the integrity of the valuation data and creating and maintaining a data-base of valuation information.

“The announcement by Cabinet comes in 2013, which is the year in which the department will mark the centenary of the notorious 1913 Natives Land Act. The office of the valuer-general is one of the institutions which have been proposed in the Green Paper on Land Reform … the success of the Green Paper must be measured by the extent to which it succeeds in reversing the negative impact and legacy of this Act,” said the department.

The president of Afasa in the province, Pitso Sekhoto said the organisation is not happy with the progress that has been made in redistributing land in the province. He feels there is still a long way to go as Free State has the lowest amount of redistributed land with only five percent of agricultural land redistributed.

According to Sekhoto, the land reform programmes in the province are extremely slow and disastrous, but he reckons everybody should now tackle this problem and not only leave it to one national department to do all the work.

“If the districts and local municipalities were involved in land reform programmes then the government would stop the mistake of buying old farms that do not have good development land.

“The government is not taking agriculture of the country seriously and has not seen the core resource of the country is the land. My concern is whether the valuer-general will indeed have the capacity to evaluate all lands around the country,” ended Sekhoto.

Meanwhile, Free State farmers who have acquired land through the land reform programme are ecstatic. Once such beneficiary, Isaac Lebusa of Swartkoppie farm, is overjoyed with the progress he has made on the farm.

Lebusa said when he started utilising his farm in 2006 the department gave him 167 cattle, 50 ewes and two rams to start farming. He said initially he wasn’t doing well but after the department introduced a mentorship programme in 2010 he grew his farming skills and he now confidently regards himself as a red meat farmer with close to 600 cattle.

Another farmer, Tsupani Hlalele was also allocated a farm by government and given a mentor. He disclosed he started out with 60 cattle, but now his livestock has grown to more than 300 cattle.

Hlalele said being born on a farm helped him with the farming knowledge but the mentorship programme helped him become a commercial farmer who is doing very well. He says if it was not for the programme he would not have been able to put food on the table for the four families that he employs.