Green Paper on Land Reform: briefing by Deputy Minister

Meeting report

The Chairperson stated that the issues of rural development and land reform needed to go in the right direction. 

Department of Rural Development and Land Reform: Green Paper on Land Reform
The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform briefed the Committee on the Green Paper on Land Reform. The delegation comprised of Deputy Minister, Thulas Nxesi, Mr Sunday Ugunronbi, Executive Manager: Policy, Research and Legislation Development, Mr Vusi Mahlangu, Acting Deputy Director General: Land Reform, Mr Eddie Mohoebi, Head of Communications, Mr Vela Mngwengwe, Chief Director: State Land Administration, Mr Sicelo Brian Mbatha, Registrar of Deeds: Registration and Support Systems and Mr Mpho Mashaba, Parliamentary Liaison Officer.   

Deputy Minister Nxesi, in his opening remarks, noted that there was a great deal of excitement about the Green Paper on Land Reform. There had been a delay in brinig it out as Cabinet had wished to separate the issues of land reform and rural development. Hence separate green papers on land reform and rural development had been developed. The Green Paper on Rural Development was being worked on. He pointed out that the Green Paper on Land Reform had four broad areas that dealt with the freehold system, land under foreigners, state land, and lastly communal land. More emphasis would be placed on the first three during the briefing. The dynamics on communal land was different than the other three. He believed SA to have a distorted land market. Some blamed it on economics by virtue of supply and demand. The bottom line was that prices were being manipulated when it became evident that government needed to purchase land for land reform. If the issue was not handled properly it could get out of hand. One need only look at what happened in Zimbabwe. Three institutions would be introduced to facilitate land reform: the Land Management Commission, the Land Management Board and the Office of the Valuer General. He noted that state land was the responsibility of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform as well as the Department of Public Works.

The Chairperson stated that members would not be asking the Department questions after the briefing but would rather forward its questions to the Department for a written response. What needed to be considered was that the first generation of land ownership in SA never bought land. Neither did the second generation. Perhaps the third generation had purchased land. Land ownership in SA was skewed.

Mr Ugunronbi undertook the briefing. Some key policy questions for consideration were why the state should continue to invest in transforming land relations and how important was land reform in SA today. The principles which underpinned the new approach to sustainable land reform were the deracialisation of the rural economy, democratic and equitable land allocation and use across gender; race and class and lastly to have strict production discipline for guaranteed national food security. The Department was following a new trajectory to break from the past without significantly disrupting agricultural production and food security as well as to avoid redistribution that does not generate livelihoods, employment and incomes. The trajectory was well supported by a recapitalisation and development programme as well as by the three institutions that would be introduced to facilitate land reform: the Land Management Commission, the Land Rights Management Board and the Office of the Valuer General. The Land Management Commission would coordinate and monitor the execution of land management functions by all state and public land custodians to ensure compliance with the agreed policy of government on land management. The Office of the Valuer General would be a statutory position responsible for the provision of fair and consistent land values for rating and taxing purposes. It would determine compensation following expropriation under the Expropriation Act as well as the provision of specialist valuation and property advice to government. It would also be responsible for creating and maintaining a database of valuation information. The Land Rights Management Board functions would be to communicate legal reforms to farm owners, farm dwellers, potential land beneficiaries as well as to build institutional capacity (inside and outside state institutions) to advise and support rights-holders and facilitate their active use of the law. The Land Rights Management Board would in addition, in collaboration with the Deeds Registrar, develop accessible and efficient systems for recording and registering rights on land. 

The strategic thrust for the Department was that land reform was located within, and informed by its Comprehensive Rural Development Programme which in turn hinged on a three pronged strategy to have:
▪ a coordinated and integrated broad based agrarian transformation,
▪ an improved land reform programme
▪ strategic investments in economic and social infrastructure that would benefit entire rural communities.
In the pursuit of agrarian transformation the Department acknowledged the link between the land question and agriculture as the basis for the search for an economic rationale and a vision of a post reform agrarian structure. Yet the demand for land may be for other productive but non agricultural uses.

Some of the general policy weaknesses were that there was a distorted land market which hampered the land acquisition strategy, there was a decline in agricultural contribution to the GDP and the unrelenting increase in rural unemployment was not helping. The Department had to concede that it was far from meeting its 30% redistribution target by 2014.

The four-tier tenure system mentioned by the Deputy Minister was elaborated upon with not much elaboration on communally owned land:

State and public land – The creation of a separate and different public land management dispensation for local government and the absence of statutory mechanisms to compel the three spheres of government to consult one another in the event of intended disposals, had given rise to a paralysing fragmentation which impacted negatively on service delivery and accountability. The current fragmentation made it possible for any sphere of government to dispose of any property which could have been utilised to achieve service delivery objectives by another. The immediate thrust of leasehold tenure on state and public land was that the state should be able to keep land in state hands.

Private land – South Africans continue to exercise freehold rights over land. There should be regulatory limitations placed on the freehold titles held by South Africans in respect of prime and unique agricultural land, the sustainable utilisation of land, the subdivision of rural/agricultural land as well as on non-resident ‘absent landlord’ properties, land quantity restrictions, special consent and approval regimes on selected controlled land, and right of first refusal.

Foreigners - Section 25(5) of the Constitution proclaims that ‘the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures , within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis.’ In order to fulfil the Constitutional obligation imposed by Section 25, government had to answer questions such as to what extent were the policies of the state conducive to enabling citizens to gain access to land or were those owning the land using the land for the greater interest of South Africa. Were the current ownership patterns sustainable to guarantee national interest including food security? Regulatory limitations should be placed on the freehold titles held by foreigners in order for there to be strict compliance with obligations and conditions. It would also ensure that foreigners be excluded from owning sensitive and national security land such as communal, coastal, heritage, environmentally sensitive, security sensitive and border lands.

Communally owned land proposed to be for mixed uses with institutionalised use rights.
Mr Ugunronbi, in conclusion, stated that undoing the social, economic and cultural effects of centuries of discrimination and exclusion on the basis of race would take time and an enduring national political effort. Challenges and constraints experienced over the last seventeen years, and lessons drawn from other countries across the world clearly show that there were no silver bullets to solving the post colonial land questions.

The Chairperson stated that much of the briefing seemed to speak to things that may be done and not about things that would be done.

Mr Ugunronbi responded that the Green Paper on Land Reform was a discussion document. When the Green Paper becomes a White Paper or Policy then it becomes a proposal.

The Chairperson suggested that perhaps the Committee could formulate the questions to be forwarded to the Department an hour before the Committee’s next meeting the following week.

The Committee Secretary cautioned that perhaps waiting an entire week was too long as by next week the Committee would have to deal with other matters.

The Chairperson suggested an alternative. Perhaps the Committee could meet for an hour on the following day, 26 October 2011.

The Committee agreed to the suggestion.

Committee Minutes
The Committee adopted its minutes of the 18 October 2011 meeting without amendments.

Committee Oversight Report to North West Province
The Committee adopted its Report on its oversight visit to the Bojamala District and Madibeng Local Municipalities in the North West Province dated the 25 October 2011 without amendments.

The meeting was adjourned.