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Mzwanele Nyhontso, minister of land reform and rural development, shared his department’s plans to ensure developing legislation to ensure “equitable access to land” with the parliament’s portfolio committee on land reform and rural development on Thursday, 20 February. This is according to a media statement issued by the parliamentary communication services.
Nyhontso said the Land Reform Framework Bill or Land Redistribution Bill’s aim was to close gaps between the White Paper on South African Land Policy and existing legislation. Amongst others, it would provide for:
- Principles for access to land.
- Access to land by the state and citizens,
- The identification and selection of beneficiaries.
- Applications and records for land allocations.
- A register of agricultural land.
- Notification of present land ownership.
- Land ownership ceilings.
- A land tribunal and regulations.
Plans to table in October
Regarding the timelines, Nyhontso said the department expected to submit the Bill for cabinet approval in March 2025 and publish it for public comment between April and May. The department also expected cabinet approval in June and final certification by the Office of chief state law adviser in July.
The Bill would apparently go to NEDLAC for deliberation in August and be tabled in parliament in October 2025.
Committee welcomes bill
The committee welcomed the presentation. Members were less impressed with the lack of meaningful progress with the development of the Bill. They also noted that using different names for this Bill was a concern, as it often leads to confusion. While there was a need to clarify the meaning of equitable access, the committee urged the department to clarify who owns what piece of land. It means there must be a credible land audit so that the government can determine what equitable access means.
Committee chairperson, Mangaqa Albert Mncwango, highlighted that the government must foster conditions that enable citizens to access land equitably. However, to date, no law or policy has been enacted to define the right to equitable access to land.
The Bill was aimed at addressing the many challenges in land redistribution, such as the coordination of post-settlement support and the question of budget. Mncwango said the declining allocation for land redistribution showed a lack of political will to tackle the land question in South Africa.
The timeframes presented were a departure from what the former minister presented to the committee. The committee expressed concerns over the lack of urgency on this matter. It was concerning to them that the public had begun litigation processes to compel parliament to pass the legislation, yet there appeared to be little progress from the department.
The chairperson said that the committee would have to monitor progress against the set timeframes to ensure that the Bill is tabled in parliament without further delay.
Concerns raised
Mncwango said it was concerning that the presentation lacked details about the specific proposals to address specific land reform challenges highlighted during a High-Level Panel on the Assessment of Key Legislation and Acceleration of Fundamental Change (HLP). That panel published their findings in September 2022 and the full report can be viewed here.
While the department were good at identifying the challenges of land reform, Mncwango said they were weak at crafting solutions. He referred to the challenges of communal property associations and farm evictions, among others. Evidence from oversight shows that the challenges persist. The chairperson called for pointed legislative intervention to address the challenges of land redistribution.
Legal expert remarks
Hans-Jurie Moolman, a director of Moolman & Pienaar Inc., said one needed to keep in mind that the country is merely at the start of a process with regards to this Bill. “It would therefore be very dangerous to make legal comments as the Bill in question does not even have conceptual wording available yet.”
However, Moolman said the Bill would not reside on a racial basis alone. Not with regards to current landowners or beneficiaries. “The Restitution of Land Rights Act (Act 22 of 1994) directly references the unfairness of confiscating land rights on the basis of race-based legislation and practices.”
To confiscate land based on race, was seen as unfair and immoral prior to 1994 and the underlying moral principles have not changed since then, Moolman said. “I think this was also part of the reasoning why the fiscus, rather than individual landowners, needed to carry the financial burden of land restitution. Government reached consensus on this point and for nearly 30 years it was the cornerstone for land restitution in the country.”
Equitable access to land – starting with government land – is crucial for successful land reform in South Africa, Moolman says. “Apart from the fact that it could unlock economic value, it could also prevent a 2002 Zimbabwean situation where land becomes a political plaything.
Moolman said the Zimbabwean situation led to destruction, because land that’s not used in an economically viable manner becomes a burden, rather than an asset. Therefore, it was important to see this Bill within the greater context of South Africa’s land reform process. It’s important to remember that in accordance with South Africa’s constitution, land reform rests on three legs:
- Restoration of rights.
- Security of tenure.
- Redistribution of land.
“Thus far, all the attention of land reform has been on the first two programmes,” Moolman said, adding that there is legislation that was supposed to enable the government to buy land that became available on the open market. However, this was used very selectively and many of those projects failed.
These projects worked on the basis that land was obtained in the open market and handed over to individual or communal beneficiaries. “One cannot help but wonder if land reform would not have been fast tracked if government bought more land that were sold on the open market. Of course this did not happen,” Moolman said, adding that this lack of progress might make politicians desperate to find a scapegoat for their land reform failures. – Susan Marais, Plaas Media
