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South Africa continues its agrarian reform, 25 years after the end of apartheid. A recent report recommended the expropriation of land without compensation, in special circumstances. The government now has the delicate task of repairing the injustices of the past while protecting the economy.
The long-awaited agrarian reform of South Africa aims to redress the country's segregation history, which has resulted in the majority of the land being owned by the white minority.
The black population, including Indian and colored communities, has been dispossessed of its lands under apartheid legislation.
A panel of ten South Africans, appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, released his report on July 28. It had eight months to review all aspects of the land reform process in South Africa and to make recommendations for legislation, policy and implementation.
That's it final report, approved by the South African government last Wednesday, the committee concluded that the expropriation of land is legitimate, as already provided for in the 1996 South African constitution.
"The expropriation does not always have to include compensation from the owner and certainly not at the market price," says Ruth Hall, panel member and professor at the Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) of the University of Western Cape. "There should be expropriation without compensation in limited circumstances."
The report identifies 10 cases in which expropriation without compensation is considered "justified and equitable". These include: abandoned land, purely speculative land, informal settlements, unused land owned by state entities.
The report recommends compensation in cases where land has been used for agriculture.
"Our panel was not unanimous on whether it's necessary to amend the constitution," Hall adds. "The majority opinion in our panel was that it was necessary to amend the constitution simply to make it clear that there could be no compensation in limited circumstances."
An alternative report
Two of the members of the presidential panel, Dan Kriek, President of AgriSA and Nick Serfontein, President of the Sernick Group, submitted a alternative report President Ramaphosa directly to follow up on recommendations that they believe could be improved.
Dr. Vuyokazi Mahlati, chairman of the group of experts, told RFI that only the main final report of the advisory group on agrarian reform and agriculture on the government's website had an official status.
"The report contains a lot of good work – and we list it. But the devil is in the details, "says Kriek, who runs AgriSA, a federation of agricultural organizations founded in 1904.
"The main report proposes an amendment to section 25 of our constitution which is the property clause. I think if we change the constitution, we would do a lot of damage to our economy. We will not get any foreign investment. We will see domestic and foreign investment dry up as levels of uncertainty increase. "
Thandeka Mbabana, the shadow minister of agriculture, land reform and rural development of the opposition Democratic Allianceagrees with Kriek that the recommendations in this report will not contribute to the growth of the South African economy.
decision The National African Congress (ANC) had to present this report and make concrete proposals because he felt obliged by the opposition Fighters for Economic Freedom& # 39; (EFF) on the debates on agrarian reform in the country.
Too much control at the ANC
Mbabana fears that the recommendations of the report on agrarian reform give too much power to the government.
"We, DA, are not sure we have to trust this government, because over the past 25 years, they have ruined agrarian reform," she told RFI. "When the ANC is in charge, it leads to widespread corruption, as they give up land to friends and business partners.
"This land reform has not affected the people who really need it, such as tenants on the farm, small producers, emerging farmers on the ground."
Kriek fears that expropriating land without compensation undermines the constitution's role in protecting civil liberties.
"I think if we amend the constitution to allow expropriation without compensation, we will open a door that should not be opened," he says. "We are going to give powers to this government and to a future government with more radical parties. This is why the powers of politicians are limited by a constitution. "
Corruption
Hall said that when drawing up their recommendations, the group of experts was fully aware of the existing corruption.
"We are concerned that in some cases the state has bought farms and provided them to the existing elite – wealthy or politically connected people," she said.
The recommendations suggest tightening the process of identifying people who should get the land "because corruption is not just about buying land, but also about attributing it".
The report proposes a new approach to identify and prioritize beneficiaries and limit the resources that a person can derive from the agrarian reform process.
The report suggests a legal clarification of "fair access" to land that, according to Hall, has never been interpreted in law or in politics.
"The state has an obligation to give priority to the people who need it the most and not just give up large holdings to its political allies," said Hall.
The group also made another recommendation aimed at fighting corruption by establishing a "land rights protector", which will act as an ombudsman with "extensive powers to investigate land corruption cases, bring together evidence and make findings ".
The possession
"Nobody is against agrarian reform. In South Africa, we all know that we need to redress the injustices of the past, "Kriek said. "But it's the balance you have to find now between remedying these injustices and developing the country's economy."
Mbabana said the recommendations would not call into question the story because "our people will not become the owners of the land".
"What they will get is property for rent, which is not what the Democratic Alliance would like to see happen on the ground," she says.
Mbabana said that the government would not issue title deeds to the new owners, which makes it difficult for them to obtain credit for practicing agriculture – which is very risky in South Africa.
Hall told RFI that South Africans claiming lands they had been unjustly dispossessed under the Indigenous Land Act of 1913 have the right to recover them as private owners of these lands. However, land claimants in the land redistribution process are not given a private title. They become rather tenants of the state and are supposed to pay rent.
Hall admits that this system "does not work well at all" and raises questions as to whether the state should own the land.
"Our own research suggests that the state is not able to manage the system," she adds. "We believe that land administration is a particularly fragile sector of the South African government and needs to be strengthened.
"But this question of whether or not there should be private securities or state property was not a matter of agreement within our panel."
The South African Parliament is due to begin debate on the draft law on expropriation of land in October.
An interdepartmental committee of ten ministers is expected to meet every two weeks to review action to implement the recommendations.
Follow Zeenat Hansrod on Twitter @zxnt
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