AFRA works with black rural people in KwaZulu-Natal whose land and development rights have been undermined, whose tenure is insecure and who do not have sufficient access to land and resources to fulfil their developmental aspirations or basic needs.

The urgency of redressing ownership patterns through the Land Reform programme in South Africa is of great concern to South Africans, however serious questions needs to be raised about the successes claimed to date by the Department for those few claims settled and agricultural or settlement projects established under the programme.

These questions need to be focus on whether the few successes claimed to date have adequately addressed our history of dispossession in a manner that redresses injustice, foster reconciliation, underpins economic growth and improves household welfare and alleviates poverty as stated in the White paper on South African Land Policy.

Ultimately the success of the land reform programme must be measured by how it achieves all these things rather than merely how it changes the structural land ownership patterns. Dispossession resulted and contributed to massive levels of poverty in rural areas which will not only be reversed through the acquisition of title or sectoral wage determinations or accessible justice centres.

To hold hearings with a selective focus on "Pace’ without acknowledging or acceding to the persistent calls for a review of the land reform framework is tantamount to looking for ways to getting to the wrong destination quicker or as the English say "flogging a dead horse".

The call for these selective hearings can also be perceived as an acknowledgement by the parliament that millions of rural poor and urban landless lives have barely changed for the better after 10 years of democracy. The build up of disappointment and frustration can only add to the immense pressure on the state to meet its programme of redress as promised.

However, some of the worst practical outcomes of Land Reform thus far are the result of this hasty planning and decision making. The current audit undertaken by the Department of Land Affairs into the poor state of Communal Property Associations and Trusts set up under Land Reform is a clear indication that all is not well. To speed up programmes which transfer land to such institutions will only serve to exacerbate the inherent problems of these institutions. Clearly the failure of the land reform programme to date cannot be measured by the delivery of a certain number of hectares to a certain number of people by a certain date!

We would have to question the intentions of these hearings and wonder whether our attentions are being diverted away from the need to tackle real questions, debates and challenges.

Much has been said about this driving principle of the land reform programme. While it may have impacted on the pace of land reform in various cases through driving up prices or creating artificial land markets in areas where no other buyers are present, of real concern is how the state perceives its role in the Land Reform programme with this principle in place. Given that poverty in South Africa is structural and requires active intervention and redress the reluctance on the states part to take responsibility for driving this poverty alleviation programme through land reform is of concern. Too often the "market forces" have prevented access to prime agricultural land, have forced people to form large communal ownership groups and have allowed price negotiations to drag on for too long. In all these situations the state has more often than not chosen to be lead by the market while mechanisms for expropriation in the interest of the public good have been in place since Act 126 was amended in 1997/8.

Despite the recognition that the land reform grant was inadequate to give people access to prime and appropriately sized land and that resulting communal ownership did little to change peoples plight except deliver a title deed to the inadequate land they occupied or purchased, the state has not actively attempted to change the forces that underpin market prices. AS long as the state remains willing to negotiate within market driven prices the power relations within rural areas will remain unchanged and access to productive land by poor people, individually or in self selected groups, will remain unattainable.

Further evidence of this states reluctance to take firm control of alleviating poverty though active redress is the ongoing confusion around the processes and regulations for subdividing agricultural land. Smallholdings remain exorbitantly expensive for the poor and yet are more likely to provide some solution to access to productive land near cities and towns and markets for poor people who rely on multiple sources of income.

Attempting to speed up delivery of titles deeds to large groups of people on expensive yet marginal pieces of agricultural land cannot address poverty or underpin economic growth.

A continued lack of policy coherence and implementation programme integration with other departments and levels of government to ensure appropriate use of limited grant funding leads to no or poor delivery of services and little integrated economic development.

If rural areas are to be transformed they require that the skewed power relationships be redressed. Accessing ownership through land reform or accessing tenancy and occupancy rights under new land laws has not resulted in better access to decision making places like IDP forums, Rural Safety and Security Forums, Magistrates Courts, police stations, local economic development forums etc. The tendency by local government, who should be in a position to help drive transformation process and agrarian reform strategies, is to rely on the relevant department to raise these issues, like Land Affairs. In practice this means that spaces are not created for poor and marginalized people to access this places of influence and direct where the resources in these forums are placed. An example of this is A district Councils LED plan in KZN which highlights agricultural projects and tourism projects like game farming etc. without mentioning the thousands of farm dwellers in these areas and how these programmes would address their plight. It was clear that any resources in this programme would serve to further empower and enrich those who were already empowered.

This can be evidenced in the growing number of game farm and conservation ventures in pursuit of governments strategy of catching the tourist market. Little or no consideration is given to the impact of these changes in land use in rural areas on farm dwellers livelihoods. Often these ventures promote the idea that they will bring economic development to the poorer rural districts and they are supported for this reasons at the expense of the poor. The illusion that jobs will be created to make up for a loss of land or access to land for grazing denies an understanding of how dependent poor people are on the land they live on for their livelihoods.

Inside this local economic development drive sits the concerns around foreign land ownership. Clearly addressing this issue requires deliberations between local government development planners and the department of land affairs.

Clearer coherence between local government planning legislation and land tenure legislation and programmes might require considering devolving powers to appropriate authorities as opposed to decentralising, which is the DLA’s current strategy. A decentralised department might be able to speed up delivery but it will not of necessity improve integrated service delivery and local economic development planning which is required for sustainable development.

The hasty resolution of the long drawn out restitution process will be welcomed by AFRA only in as far as it will highlight the fact that the current land reform programme has not made any real dent on the kind of agrarian reform needed to ensure economic growth is underpinned and poverty is alleviated.

Already there are numerous examples of Commissions and Commissioners in various provinces looking for the shortest route to completing claim processes as they are pressurised to meet the unforgivable deadlines. A lack of consultation with groups of claimants leading to inappropriate settlements can only exacerbate the limited achievements of this programme. Consultation with rightful claimants will be critical in avoiding legal battles post the apparent settlement of claims, as people claim that their rights were abused.

Having said this of greatest concern is the continued pursuit of monetary compensation solutions as a means to fast track and "deliver" on the Presidential targets set. Ironically this important land reform programme is bound to leave legitimate land reform clients landless if this road is followed. Undoubtedly these people will return to participate in a genuine land reform programme.

We conclude by reiterating the call for a Land Summit that can honestly and openly review the current land reform framework. Such a summit, which might need to be preceded by a series of intense consultations with various sectors, must help build a vision and plan for how best to achieve real agrarian reform if we are serious about redressing poverty and economic growth.

Thank You

Sihle Mkhize

Director