The major priority areas covered by the plan in the area of land reform include the disposal of State land, tenure reform, the increasing pace of delivery of the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD), and continued focus on vulnerable groups such as labour tenants, farm workers, women and youth. Another critical area where this plan reflects progress is with regard to the introduction of a new Land Redistribution for Housing Sub-programme. The Department has now committed itself to a rapid land release programme to make land available for housing purposes and, towards this end it has established a close working relationship with the Department of Housing. Whilst this is not an entirely new initiative given that the Department has, since 1995, implemented a land redistribution sub-programme for settlement purposes in both rural and urban areas, this sub-programme seeks to broaden the existing scope of delivery in order to ensure that the need for land for housing is effectively responded to. The two Departments will work jointly in a more or less similar fashion as the DLA and the National Department of Agriculture are doing in respect of LRAD.

Planning around the Tenure Reform Programme has benefited immensely from the National Tenure Reform Conference held in Durban in November 2001. The open and consultative modus operandi of the conference ensured that the Department received a rich set of recommendations on how to tackle some of the more difficult issues, particularly with regard to tenure reform in communal areas. Most importantly, the conference gave clear pointers towards the best way of addressing the issue of land administration in the communal areas in such a way that the communities, their Traditional Leaders, Provincial and Local Government structures, as well as the Department of Land Affairs can all work together and manage an efficient system that promotes rural economic development.

The Department has also ensured that the process of implementing the land reform programme should interface in a meaningful and dynamic way with the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) and the Urban Renewal Programme (URP). In the case of the former, emphasis continues to be placed on activities around tenure reform in all 13 ISRDP nodal areas. In the latter case, the area targeted for land acquisition and/or redistribution through the disposal of state land has been broadened to cover more URP nodal areas such as Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape, Kwa Mashu in KwaZulu/Natal and Galeshewe in Northerc Cape.

This strategic plan also continues the process of firming up functional integration within the Department by fostering synergy and synchronisation among its functional components and sharpening their various roles in the Land Reform Programme. Thus, the key technical support functions such as Deeds Registration, Cadastral Surveys and Surveys and Mapping are now undergoing a process of transformation that not only seeks to address concerns around employment equity, but also to ensure that these functions become part and parcel of the process of delivery in land reform and the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of our people. A major output in terms of this plan is, therefore, the review of the legislation relating to the Deeds Registry function in order to ensure a more equitable access to Deeds registry facilities for the inhabitants of all nine provinces of our country, as well as to address certain problematic aspects of the law, particularly those that continue to discriminate against women.

A number of major deliverables have been outlined in terms of this strategic plan in respect of the spatial planning function, which include practical work to be done in giving support to Municipalities in incorporating spatial plans into their respective Integrated Development Plans (IDPs). This is set against the backdrop of work of a very high standard that has been done in formulating relevant policy and legislative frameworks, such as the White Paper on Spatial Planning, the Land Use Management Bill, the Spatial Information Bill, and the Planning Profession Bill.

The areas of financial and human resource management, and in particular expenditure management, and the decentralisation programme have seen great improvement over the past year. This plan sets out ways and means of addressing new challenges, particularly in the areas of information technology, performance management and communication.

The Department is now demonstrating its commitment towards achieving integrated governance and delivery through increased and effective participation primarily in the Social Sector Cluster, and also in the Governance and Administration Cluster, the Economic Cluster, and the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster (JCPS) Cluster. As a result of these efforts the Department, as reflected in this plan, has factored NEPAD, SADC and the WSSD into the mainstream of its work.

Once again, we look forward to a productive and exciting year that, we believe, will be characterised by further improvement in the quality and quantity of our delivery.

The most important characteristic of this strategic plan is that the strategic thrust of the management process within the Department of Land Affairs (DLA or "Department") is beginning to shift from the macro to the micro level. In other words, the Department is now in the process of moving away from formulating strategies and implementation systems in respect of wider processes such as restructuring, decentralisation, policies and systems in respect of land reform and spatial planning, and the alignment of organisational structures and systems to new policy directions. This is largely because the work of strategising around these processes is now virtually complete, and what remains is to implement the strategies, systems and procedures that have been formulated. Moreover, the process of compiling this strategic plan did not focus on the formulation of the vision and mission of the Department and its key strategic objectives, as these were put in place during the course of strategic planning for the previous year.

Whilst it is true that in some areas, such as the Tenure Reform Programme, the policy formulation process is still incomplete, the various Branches, Chief Directorates and Directorates are now gearing themselves up to implement their various programmes. A key characteristic of the strategic focus at the micro level is the development and refinement of outputs and specific projects at the operational level that have to be implemented. This also demonstrates that the Department’s strategic planning framework has matured and the planning systems have become entrenched.

It may thus be said that this strategic plan is of a higher standard in a technical sense than its predecessor, and this plan clearly demonstrates that the DLA has now established a firm foundation for its planning processes. Having gone through an entire year during which the Department has tested the strategic plan that it put together for the 2001/02 financial year, the logical next step was to refine and improve on the previous plan at the levels of both its formulation and implementation. This strategic plan therefore also focuses more sharply on those aspects of the plan that require improvement, drawing from the experience we have had in implementing our strategic plan during the course of the 2001/02 financial year. The major focus of the planning process has thus been placed on key outputs, targets, measures, time frames and activities, and on priorities, as set out in various policy documents.

In order to ensure that delivery on the various outputs is realised within the targets that have been set, the issue of capacity was subjected to close scrutiny during the planning process. We are of the view that the resolution of problems and constraints relating to capacity is – notwithstanding resource constraints - firmly within our reach and is one of the primary responsibilities of management of the Department, which the managers themselves must address.

The DLA’s planning system

With regard to its planning system, the Department has achieved the following:

• Clear and crisp vision and mission statements that accommodate all our line function responsibilities and also encapsulate the challenge of social and economic development, are in place.
• The Department’s strategic planning is now aligned to policy frameworks that guide our work, as underpinned in the new policy direction statement issued by the Minister in February 2000.

• The Department has endeavoured to accommodate in our strategic planning processes new policy focus areas such as the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) and the Urban Renewal Programme (URP).

• Clear outputs have been articulated and they have been aligned to resources that are available within the Department (both material and particularly financial, as well as human), and are linked to the MTEF cycle.
• Clear delivery targets have been set in relation to each of the key outputs set by the various Chief Directorates, and are linked to time frames that are realistic and therefore achievable.
• The Department has also ensured that all the outputs are measurable, which then also ensures that their implementation can be effectively monitored.

This approach does not only comply fully with the requirements of the Public Service Act, 1984, as amended, and the Public Service Regulations, as well as with the Public Finance Management Act, 1 of 2000 (PFMA) and Treasury Regulations, it also provides a dynamic mechanism for the effective management of the performance of the Department as a whole.

In more or less similar fashion as last year, the planning process of the Department was informed by the following policy documents and statements:

• Policy direction from the Minister as articulated in the document entitled: Policy Statement by the Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs for Strategic Directions on Land Issues, issued in February 2000.
• State of the Nation Address by the President on 8 February 2002.
• Action Plan of the January 2002 Cabinet Lekgotla for the Social Sector Cluster.
• Relevant laws and regulations.
• Strategic organisational and programme priorities as contained in the opening address by the Minister to the Strategic Planning Workshop of 10-13 February 2002.

The Cabinet Lekgotla held in January 2002 identified a number of areas of integration across departments. The following key areas are relevant to the Constitutional mandate of the Department:

• The Social Sector Cluster, which is the principal cluster of which our Department is a member, placed emphasis on poverty alleviation, increased delivery of land and housing, food security as well as land for housing, health and social security, the ISRDP and the URP.
• Efforts to give impetus to the process of African economic development, principally through the New Economic Programme for African Development (NEPAD). This programme is a major priority of the government and its importance is set to increase. All departments, without exception, are expected to make an input, especially when the implementation process begins.
• The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), to be held in Johannesburg from 24 August to 4 September is another high priority area. The importance of the WSSD does not lie only in the fact that we are the host country, but in its potential for engendering a genuine process of renewal and sustainable development, especially in Africa. The preparatory work that is being done through the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC), in which our Minister and Department are participating, has been of a high standard. It is anticipated that land and environmental issues will be of central importance during the Summit, and our Department is thus called upon to play an important in helping to shape the African position in this regard in preparation for the Summit.
• In the area of foreign relations, our Department is expected to increase its role within SADC, and towards this end our Minister has given the instruction that we must establish an International Desk to deal with issues related to both SADC and NEPAD.

The key strategic focus areas for our strategic planning process are guided by the above-mentioned policy framework as well as by new priorities that the Minister articulated in her opening address to the strategic planning workshop. The key strategic focus areas for the current planning cycle are inter alia the following:

• The need to improve delivery in the area of the disposal of State land.
• More adequate resourcing of the Restitution Programme, so that the funding of this programme can keep up with the heightened pace of delivery.
• The need to be more precise in terms of resources and in setting targets for the LRAD sub-programme over the next three years, in order to enhance its coverage and impact.
• The need to make adequate provision in our plan for the Land for Housing sub-programme, and, together with the Department of Housing, to make adequate provision in this regard in terms of resources.
• The need to widen the scope of our contribution to the Urban Renewal Programme to cover other URP priority areas such as Mdanstane in the Eastern Cape, KwaMashu in KwaZulu/Natal, Galeshewe in the Northern Cape, and in the nodal areas that have been identified in other provinces.
• The need to rise to the challenge of tenure reform, which remains our major challenge in terms of our contribution to rural development. In this regard the Department is expected to address all institutional and resource issues in good time; conduct and finalise further consultations with stakeholders on the Communal Land Rights Bill; ensure that our planning processes for the Tenure Reform Programme take on board and are intertwined with the planning that is taking place on a national scale in respect of the ISRDP nodes; address the issue of land administration and in this regard present concrete proposals on such issues as Land Rights Boards, the role and positioning of existing Provincial land administration structures, and the role of traditional authorities.
• Continued targeting of vulnerable groups such as labour tenants, farm workers and landless communities for resettlement within the context of the LRAD or the settlement programme.
• With regard to the other key performance area of Spatial Planning and Information, we must take the lead and effectively perform our task of co-ordinating the planning processes at all spheres of government. The capacity constraints that have been highlighted in this regard must be addressed.
• The process of reviewing legislation applicable to the Deeds Registry function must be speeded up and priority must be given to ensuring that this function makes a greater contribution to land reform and Deeds Registry facilities are made available to citizens on a more equitable basis.
• Greater alignment of the functions of Deeds and Surveys, Cadastral Surveys as well as Surveys and Mapping, to land reform programmes, particularly tenure reform.
• Improvement of the quality of our projects by ensuring tighter integration of delivery processes within our Department and between our Department and other departments.
• Greater participation of our Department in the various FOSAD Clusters and in particular to increase our role in the New Economic Policy for African Development (NEPAD) programme, in SADC, and in justice and crime prevention, through participation in the relevant Clusters.
• Improvement and alignment of financial and human resource management systems in order to enhance performance and delivery.
• Improvement of our overall expenditure performance, particularly in land reform delivery, to the extent of at least 90% of our budget or above.
• Broadening of the scope and increase in the pace of the implementation of Project Mutingati, the DLA’s decentralisation project.
• Improvement of our communications, both internally and externally, placing greater emphasis on our clients and the media.

The effective management of the performance of managers and staff, and by extension their respective functional components, is a sine qua non of planned policy implementation. During the previous financial year, the Department thus paid special attention to performance management. In this regard the Department went through an elaborate process of aligning to the strategic plan the performance agreements of senior managers and the work plans of all other staff that are designed in terms of the Personnel Performance Management System (PPMS).

Some success was achieved in the implementation of this multi-layered and synchronised performance management system. However, there is room for improvement in this regard, and, given that lessons have been drawn from the teething problems experienced during the previous year, the management of the performance of all individual members and functional units of the Department should improve from the 2002/03 financial year onwards. All managers are expected to play an effective role in this regard.

Delivery on the various programmes of the Department is beginning to reflect a positive trend. What now remains is to increase its scale and pace. I am confident that the Department has, through this plan set a firm foundation for the realisation of the goal of increased delivery.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Department held a strategic planning session from 10 to 13 February 2002 at Aventura Conference Centre in Warmbaths. The facilitator team was Lucky Mathebula, Paul van der Merwe and Johan Swart of Group Dynamics (Pty) Ltd. The document reflects the results of the workshop.

 

 

2. PLANNING GUIDELINES AND ASSUMPTIONS

• The relevant constitutional provisions and legislation

• The Minister’s and the Director- General’s opening addresses.

• The President’s State of the Nation address and Cabinet Lekgotla decisions.

• The principle of alleviation of poverty must be overarching.

• The principle of social equity must be overarching.

• 90% spending of the allocated budget. The allocated budget for the medium term period is as follows:

• The Department will contribute to the development of the nodal areas of the I(S)RDP and the URP.

• Participation and contribution in inter-governmental and international activities should receive special attention.

• Strategic plan will form the basis of the operational plan.

• The medium term budget forms the basis for service delivery.

• Decentralisation of operations and services must conform to project Mutingati..

• Restitution completed by March 2005.

• Resources will be available to meet targets set (particularly for the completion of Restitution by March 2005).

• There will be co-operation at all spheres of government and from all relevant institutions

* Pending the directive of the Minister with regard to the withdrawal/retention of the Powers of Attorney issued to Provincial MECs, which will determine the assignment of responsibility for the aforementioned function. In addition, validation of restitution claims affecting approximately 250 000 hectares of the aforementioned land is underway. Certainty on the number of hectares available for disposal will be determined once the validation process is concluded.

*The budget of the Restitution programme would have to be augmented to enable the Commission to finalise outstanding claims within three years as directed by the President in his State of the Nation Adress.