Essy M. Letsoalo
ESSY M. LETSOALO is assistant director, Northern Transvaal Land Affairs, Sovenga, South Africa.
Introduction
Bibliography
Introduction
The issue of South Africa's apartheid policies was an international focus of debate for decades. At the heart of the debate was not only the inhumanity of the system but its impact on the redistribution of economic resources, especially land.
The grand apartheid strategy, denationalization of Africans by creating autonomous countries out of the bantustans, was officially declared dead in February, 1990, only months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war.
The current debate focuses on the economic and social consequences of both the end of apartheid and the cold war. Although South Africa's democracy is less than two years old, its land reform policies have received high-profile attention from the media. The indication is that neither the minority landowners nor the majority potential beneficiaries of the land reform policies are satisfied.
This paper is an analysis of the land reform policy of South Africa in the context of the demands of the landless majority population, the pre-emption of land reform by the apartheid government, and the reaction of the landowners.
Is there a need for land reform?
STUDIES OF THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF South Africa have clearly indicated that the creation of the bantustans led to the unequal distribution of land between the races with the minority white population having ten times the land occupied by the majority black population.
Land dispossession took place long before the declared policy of apartheid of 1948. The 1913 Natives Land Act No. 27 and the 1936 Bantu Trust and Land Act No. 18 both sealed the unequal distribution of land between the races. In terms of the former, only 7.3 percent of the land was reserved for Africans. The latter was meant to release a further 5.7 percent. However, by 1991 when the Land Acts were repealed, 1.25 million ha that had been promised was still in the hands of the government under the South African Development Trust.
The creation of the bantustans as pure ethnic entities could never have been achieved without the massive forced removals that became the symbol of apartheid. The 'ethnic cleansing' entailed the establishment of ten bantustans into which Africans were forcibly removed under different categories such as the removal of black spots, the consolidation of homelands, the abolition of labour tenancy, and influx control measures, which were the four most detrimental.
Because of this social engineering, Africans have become landless and near-landless. They have become tenants on white farms or they are crowded in bantustans and are trucked daily into white farms as labourers where they have less than economic units of land and survive from migrant remittances, pensions and activities of the informal sector. Some have moved to the urban fringes where they form a shack population, commonly referred to as squatters.
The overcrowding and poverty in the bantustans have been acknowledged even by the apartheid government. However, measures to deal with the problem entailed another form of social engineering, 'betterment planning'. This strategy tampered with the land rights within the bantustans and led to the arrangement of scattered households in a grid pattern, the demarcation of agricultural plots in designated areas, the demarcation of grazing camps to replace the system of open grazing, and the establishment of agricultural projects with government taking over land and using it for state farming and exports.
Contrary to the proposals of the Tomlinson Commission (the architect of 'betterment planning'), no freehold land ownership was introduced, no agricultural infrastructure was provided for the betterment schemes, and no industries were started for the surplus population that could not be accommodated in betterment schemes and had to move into closer settlements.
The result of 'betterment planning' was not the promised improvement of agricultural production, but a reduction of land holdings for some households which resulted in more and more people being impoverished. This, plus the resettlement that accompanied 'betterment planning', and the introduction of apartheid chieftaincy, caused violent opposition.
Demands for land reform, therefore, have come from the victims of forced removals, tenants, farm workers, the unemployed small farmers and squatters. The demands are based on economic needs. The average size of land holding ranges from one-third ha in the former bantustan of Qwa Qwa, to a little more than 2 ha in the former bantustan of Bophuthatswana whereas Makhanya (1994) concluded that a farm of less than 8 ha is not economically viable. There is economic merit in the demands for land.
Land demands cannot be judged only on their economic merit. As indicated, land dispossession was a political tool of the apartheid government. Some of the landless and near landless (i.e. the majority of people who reside in betterment villages and closer settlements of the former bantustans who have no access to land for cultivation), have given up their land under cultivation and/or grazing for residential sites to accommodate the growth due to natural causes and immigration from white farms. Since 1990 they have resorted to land invasions.
The white population, as an exclusive group of landowners, naturally becomes the target of land reform. There is no doubt that the same land ownership pattern that made land reform imperative in countries such as China exists in South Africa where "the land owned by the rich (white) stretches from one end to the other without a break, but the poor (black) have no place even to stand upon" (Cheng, 1961:2).
Although Sachs (1990) includes two categories of whites as potential claimants of land, it is arguable that no white person has been a victim of land dispossession. Indeed, those whose land was taken in the process of the consolidation of bantustans were generously compensated. Furthermore, land reform is imperative not only because Africans have too small and uneconomic land units, but because the white landowners have too large holdings, on the average 1435 ha. In 1987 they owned 65 170 units. The average size varies from agro-climatic region to region with, for example, 664 ha in Natal and 2175 ha in the Cape.
The history of how the whites came to have exclusive territorial land ownership and the resultant benefits has been interpreted variously by social scientists and lay people, i.e. stories of how far a horse/mule could run, stories of how land was exchanged for a Bible, stories of outright theft, etc.
The legal instrument for whites to accumulate land was passed in the same year as the legal instrument that prohibited Africans from acquiring land outside the African reserves. The Land Settlement Act of 1913, as variously amended, provided for the acquisition of state and privately-owned land to settle white farmers; the use of public funds to buy the land, with the state subsidy of up to 84 percent of the sale price; and the provision of advances for production costs. All these were the basis for the maldistribution of farmland, with whites owning 84 percent of farmland although they accounted for only 10 percent of the rural population in 1987. The maldistribution of land and benefits is reflected in Table 1, which shows the racial involvement in the agricultural sector.
Table 1 THE RACIAL DIVISION OF RURAL AREAS BY PRINCIPAL ECONOMIC FEATURES, 1988
Feature - Average farm size
White Areas - 1 300 ha
Black Areas - 1 ha
Average farm income
R70 050
R141
Share of gross market output
96%
4%
Share in farm GDP
90%
10%
Share of transfer payments
97%
3%
The pre-emption of land reform
FROM THE 1980S
IN THE 1980S, THE APARTHEID GOVERNMENT was characterized by reform, repression and co-optation. However, the reform politics did not entail land reform as a universal remedy for problems associated with unequal distribution of land. Instead, the trend continued to avoid issues of land reform by concentrating on tenure reform, i.e. the redistribution of land rights within the bantustans.
Whereas in the 1950s, the proposal to have Africans purchase land within the bantustans was rejected, in the 1980s the government strategy was to promote a class of Africans hopeful of material advancement. Thus, together with mainstream economists and free-marketers, government changed from vociferous denial of freehold to a coercion for freehold.
Universities were commissioned to come up with development plans for the bantustans, for example, the Rand Afrikaanse University for Gazankulu and Pretoria University for Lebowa. In addition, there were commissions appointed for the same purpose, such as the Swart Commission for the Ciskei and the Buthelezi Commission for Kwazulu. All the commissions advocated so-called land modernization, i.e. freehold tenure. Dissenting voices were thrown out of the window (e.g. Fenyes, 1982). A significant feature was that these academics advised Africans to buy land in the bantustans, while they were denied the same right in white South Africa, a denial that remained unchallenged until 1987 (Letsoalo, 1987).
The governmental strategy of freehold landownership within the bantustans found a fertile ground in the African business community. The easy co-optation of this class is exemplified by the fact that the land tenure debate in South Africa has been dominated by the myth that the agrarian crisis in the bantustans was the result of African traditions, notably communal land tenure. It was alleged that this traditional system allocated land to inefficient families of male migrant labourers and therefore promoted absentee land-ownership, allocated land to inefficient farmers, prevented progressive farmers from getting larger farms and/or was a disincentive to farmers who could not use their land as collateral to access credit.
In addition to the above myth, there was a misconception that the apparent success of white agriculture was the result of freehold, despite evidence that white agriculture is over-subsidized, heavily indebted and ecologically unsustainable (Fenyes et al, 1988). For the African business community, lessons from other countries were completely disregarded (i.e. when land is mortgaged, it may be lost to the bank; the poor may sell their land for cash and become landless and homeless; the land market does not develop; freehold title is not a guarantee for credit-worthiness; increased productivity may result from relaxation of constraints; and/or conversion to freehold generally increases ownership disputes, introduces the possibility of land grabbing and erodes the rights of the poor and women to land).
FROM THE 1990S
AS INDICATED ABOVE, THE APARTHEID government not only endorsed the notion of freehold tenure for white South Africa, but extended it into the bantustans in the 1980s. This was part of the overall policy of promoting privatization. Thus, for instance, the White Paper on Privatization was published in 1987.
By the end of the 1980s, it was becoming clear that the metamorphosis from bantu reserve to independent bantustan had been aborted. A combination of factors contributed to the failure of the South African government to denationalize the majority of the indigenous population: the unfeasibility of creating countries out of the bantustans; the failure of even apartheid-apologist governments to recognize (constitutionally) the sovereignty of the bantustans; and the cultural, economic and political pressure on the South African government to abandon its apartheid policies.
Even before the negotiation strategy was announced in February, 1990, various groups had begun to work on future policies, commonly referred to as post-apartheid policies. These groups included the business community, the academic community, government agencies and non-government or extra- parliamentary organizations. Thus, they encompassed individuals and institutions with different backgrounds, ideologies and agendas.
The policy proposals were based on different myths or manipulative arguments. Although the primary root of poverty was traced back to land dispossession, when it came to proposals for land reform, many of the results of land dispossession and apartheid were used to argue against land reform and/or to propose a market-based land reform.
The first argument against land reform was that the African communal land tenure was a stumbling block to development. As indicated above, the systems of communal and freehold land tenure have been demythified. Therefore, the advancement of communal tenure as a problem was only to divert attention from the unequal distribution of land to the mythical evils of communal tenure.
The second focus of the anti-land reform economists was on agricultural restructuring. There is no doubt that the South African agricultural sector needs to be restructured. The problem was that the potential problems of the beneficiaries of land reform were presented as reasons for not having land reform. Clearly, the emphasis on productivity and food security was intended to reassure the minority white landowners, although the majority landless population could not be convinced that there was food security, let alone that it be protected at the expense of land reform.
The third argument against land reform was the urbanization fallacy. Proponents of this myth not only opposed land reform, they used the victims of land dispossession to argue that because bantustan populations survived mainly from migrant remittances, they were functionally urbanized and therefore would not demand land for agriculture. This assertion ignored studies of bantustan urbanization which show that the key factor in this process was forced removals (Letsoalo, 1983).
The migratory labour system has persisted as part of the reform politics despite the abolition of Influx Control Legislation in 1986. Therefore, access to more land is essential for families of migrant workers. Part-time farming among whites, at 20 percent in 1990, was found to be contributing much to the economy.
"RD develops people's inherent capacities to participate actively in providing the means for access to needed resources. RD enables people/households to utilize these resources economically and ecologically and in a sustainable manner for the improvement of the quality of life in rural areas for present and future generations."
MR. THOMAS WESTERMANN - GERMANY
An extension of the urbanization fallacy is that the bantustan population has lost its agricultural skills. This refers to the very Africans who commute to white farms and form the backbone of so-called white agriculture. Alienation from agriculture is the result of land dispossession. Proponents of this myth are silent on the issue of lack of urban skills. Yet, they argue that to "rekindle a desire in agriculture or to reconstitute a peasantry (would be) pointless and costly" (Cobbett, 1987). This was the opinion that formed the apartheid government's strategies of broader industrial decentralization in the 1970s and regional development policies of the 1980s, which have all been very costly failures.
The proposal of those who upheld the above myths included market-based land reform. These proposals formed the strategy of the government as a means to ensure the economic survival of the white population, when a black majority government was inevitable.
The White Paper on Land Reform was published in March 1991. This led to the 1991 Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act No. 108 of 1991 and the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights Act No. 112 of 1991. Both Acts promote privatization or freehold tenure. The former endorsed land reform through the market; the latter endorsed freehold tenure in white South Africa and extended it to Africans in the bantustans.
Studies of forced removals show that they represented a serious violation of human rights and impoverished formerly strong agrarian communities. However, the government wanted to take advantage of the reconciliatory conditions of the 1990s to forget the past:
"The government is of the opinion that a programme for the restoration of land to the individuals and communities who were forced to give up their land on account of previous policies or other historical reasons would not be feasible. Apart from the vast potential for conflict inherent in such a programme, overlapping and contradictory claims to such land, as well as other practical problems, would make its implementation extremely difficult, if not impossible. The government believes that it is in the interest of peace and progress that the present position should be accepted and that the opportunities afforded by the new land policy should be exploited to bring about a more equitable dispensation" (South Africa, 1991: 6).
After pressure to reconsider its position on land restoration, the government appointed a controversial Advisory Commission on Land Allocation (ACLA). The Commission was not only controversial because of its composition and terms of reference, but most importantly, it pre-empted land reform in general and land restoration in particular.
First, the National Land Committee (NLC) and the Legal Resource Center (LRC) made representations for forcibly removed communities. They advised communities to form Land Trusts and agonized about the form of 'secure' tenure for land claimants. Second, the bantustan governments made representations for different tribal authorities to acquire more land or to establish 'new' tribes. Third, the white land owners who had sold their land to the government, made representations to purchase their old properties. All three occurred on the eve of independence and a new constitution.
Reaction to the White Paper on Land Reform was varied. There were those who considered it the final blow to apartheid or, to use the vocabulary of the government, it was an indication that negotiations were irreversible. There were those who considered it irrelevant, because the Acts had acted as a scaffolding and now that the apartheid building was intact the Acts had become irrelevant. There were those (the Labour Movement) who accused the government of unilateral restructuring of the economy in the 'old' apartheid style, i.e. without consultation. There were those (National African Farmers Union) who immediately took advantage of the Act to sell and buy land. There were those who accused then-President F.W. de Klerk of selling out to the Communists and giving them the land that had been acquired historically and legally by white pioneers.
Politically, the government was responding to the call for the abolition of the Land Acts by antiapartheid activists, academics and organizations. Economically, the government was pre-empting future policies on land reform and the restoration of land to the rightful owners.
The abolition of the Land Acts was more of a threat to the Africans in the bantustans than it was to the white landowners. It was significant that in the same breath that de Klerk threatened or promised to abolish the Land Acts, he also assured the white farmers that their freehold titles were non-negotiable. Under the restrictions of the Land Acts, Africans could not buy land outside the bantustans. Similarly, whites could not buy land in the bantustans. The Land Acts, therefore, had served to prevent white speculators or land developers from rendering the poor bantustan population completely landless.
With the restrictions lifted, land in the bantustans would be open for purchase. However, a negligible number of Africans could afford to buy land in white South Africa at the market value, while whites could easily buy land in the bantustans. The result would be chat the present victims of land dispossession would become victims of land privatization (Cross, 1990; Letsoalo, 1990).
The popular reaction towards the 1991 White Paper on Land Reform was that an illegal government should not make legislation. The reaction of the National African Federation Chamber of Commerce was to convert its Agricultural Division into the National African Farmers Union, whose objective is to promote freehold land ownership among Africans. A negligible number of this group has bought land at the market value. The implication of this move during the negotiation period was that land that would become available for land reform was moving into the hands of Africans. The new landowners would be against land reform, thus dividing the landless majority. The landless majority would remain at the mercy of landowners, black and white.
The pre-emption of land reform through The Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act of 1991 was not a pioneer act. The imminence of land reform prompted land sales in other countries. It has been demonstrated in Chile that land redistribution cannot be achieved through land sales. Nearly two-thirds of the buyers of land in Chile during the debate of agrarian reform were business people and professionals, another 14 percent already owned land. The only buyers who could afford the payments were those with incomes from other investments or professions. Absentee ownership was the rule among larger landholders; essentially land was turned into recreational facilities for absentee landholders (Brown, 1971).
Another example of the failure of land sales to redistribute land is Zimbabwe. Under the terms of the 1980 Lancaster House Constitution, land reform was to be through a market-based process, commonly referred to as the willing-seller-willing-buyer. By 1986, a Land Acquisition Act became necessary to release more land. The Act provided that the government be offered land first, and only when it had issued a 'certificate of no interest' could the land be sold on the open market. It also provided for the compulsory acquisition of land declared under-utilized or derelict.
However, by 1990, it was again necessary to have the Amendment of Land Acquisition Act. This entailed major shifts from the Lancaster Settlement including: land designation (i.e. not a willing seller); not more than one farm unit by one individual or company, with exceptions depending on merit; no absentee landowners; minimum and maximum farm sizes according to different ecological regions; and no agricultural land owned by foreigners. Thus, ten years after independence, the willing-seller-willing-buyer strategy was being discarded; it had failed to redistribute the land. Also, it has been reported that farms belonging to six Zimbabwean cabinet ministers and some senior state officials have been recommended for acquisition by the state for resettlement/land reform (Star International, 11-17/2/93).
In the light of the above examples, it is understandable why it is considered that the advocates of a market-based process in South Africa were only making cautious excuses for not being willing to give up white land, while recognizing that the present racial division of land must change.
Recent attempts towards a land reform
MOST POST-INDEPENDENCE AFRICAN governments had some form of land reform. In South Africa, the struggle for liberation was the struggle for land. Therefore, it is not only expected, but mandatory (Bruce, 1989).
The Constitution of South Africa Act No. 200 of 1993 provided for an Interim Constitution for a democratic South Africa, pending the writing of the Constitution by the Constitutional Assembly. The Interim Constitution provided significant parameters for land reform, for example, land is classified as a national function. Significantly, provinces cannot have different land reform policies, as these are the responsibility of the national Department of Land Affairs.
The Bill of Rights provides for protection of property rights. The different interpretations of this clause indicate that it is possible to use the provision to block land reform. Principles of equality, affirmative action and reconciliation are also embodied in the constitution. However, they are all subject to interpretation and may or may not promote land reform.
The government's Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) aims at redistributing 30 percent of land within a five-year period. There is, therefore, provision to purchase land through the different policies of housing and rural development.
The Interim Constitution is very detailed in how land reform is to be done. The government of national unity will redress the injustices of the past within a free market economy. Land reform will be market-based or demand-driven and needs-based to use the concepts used by the Department of Land Affairs.
The 1991 White Paper on Land Reform had singled out victims of forced removal to indicate that only the principle of a willing-seller-willing-buyer would constitute land reform, pointing out that restoration of land would not be feasible. Similarly, the 1993 Constitution singled out victims of forced removals as the only category of the landless majority that would become the beneficiary of land reform through restitution of land rights.
Restitution of land rights had already started in 1991 with the establishment of the ACLA by the apartheid government. Noting that the former government had pointed out that it would be a difficult task, it cannot redress the inequities of the past on its own. Consequently, the Department of Land Affairs has a three-pronged land reform policy - restitution, redistribution and tenure reform.
RESTITUTION
THE RESTITUTION OF LAND RIGHTS ACT No. 22 of 1994 is the first Land Act of the democratic government. In terms of this Act, a Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights and Land Claims Court were established in 1995. Both bodies were prescribed by the Interim Constitution.
The Land Act of 1994 was drawn by institutions and organizations that had assisted the communities fighting against forced removals and had assisted victims of forced removals to claim land from ACLA. Quintessentially, the Act does not provide for indigenous land rights. However, the landless majority as described above has put its hope for land on restitution. Indeed, land claims are on the lips of everybody, whether they qualify in terms of the Restitution Act or not.
The twist in the programme of restitution is that many communities have claim to land that is presently owned by other Africans. Table 2 shows categories of African land subject to land claims that have been identified in the Northern Province. Were such land claims to succeed, then the democratic government would have to carry out forced removals. Some of the affected would be those who had been victims of forced removals, as they were dumped on land claimed by other groups.
With the Restitution Act, provision for restoration of land is not feasible. Therefore, the above scenario of forced removals may not be valid. However, alternative land may be neither available nor affordable -even state land may be claimed by other groups or be used for other purposes of national importance.
The Restitution Act provides for just, market value compensation of land for restoration. This factor has not been appreciated by the present landowners, whose opposition to land restitution shows that they do not consider restitution a redress of past inequities. Their arguments range from food security and economic growth to war against communism.
Considering that the present landowners have to be willing sellers to enable restitution, the prospects for land reform under this category seem doomed. Even if the prospects were good, this category of land reform deals with less than 5 percent of the land - a wide margin in the 10:1 racial space, in favour of white.
The other controversy surrounds claims to land by different communities. Because of the lack of understanding of traditional African land-ownership, most commentators and even land claimants do not understand that such counter-claims do not constitute conflicting, fraudulent or even frivolous claims.
REDISTRIBUTION
THE CONCEPT OF REDISTRIBUTION IS USED officially to refer to the government programme of willing-seller-willing-buyer. This programme was also initiated by the apartheid government through the Distribution of Certain State Land Act No. 126 of 1993. It entails state assistance to landless households willing to buy land from willing sellers (private and state) through a Settlement or Land Acquisition Grant of up to R15 000 per household (R4.54=US$ 1, 1996). Qualification for access to the R5000 is an income of up to R1500 per month. But these beneficiaries, by definition, have low income and are not credit worthy. So a household cannot buy land on its own and therefore needs to form a group of buyers.
Inherent in the above land grant is the imperative for willing group or community buyers to have access to credit to supplement the land grant because R15 000 is not enough money for land purchase. Furthermore, the Agricultural Credit Board does not give credit to Trusts, which are the legal entities for the acquisition of land. The government's policy proposal for beneficiaries to use their livestock as collateral is a recipe for disaster.
Table 2 AFRICAN LAND SUBJECT TO LAND CLAIMS: NORTHERN PROVINCE, 1994-1995
Category
Example
Land bought by tribes
Sekhukhune tribe vs Mashabela tribe
Land allocated to tribes
Mamone tribe vs Vergelegen Community Kibi tribe vs Malebogo tribe Masha tribe vs Nchabeleng tribe
Land bought by communities
Bochum communities vs Malebogo tribe
Tribal land excised for establishment of townships
Lebowakgomo vs Mphahlele tribe Namakgale vs BaPhalaborwa tribes
Land allocated to bantustans
Gazankulu vs Venda tribes Gazankulu vs Lebowa tribes
Land allocated to tribes under 'apartheid chiefs'
Officially recognized tribes vs unrecognized chiefs. (Land claims coupled with claims for chieftaincy.)
Land allocated by ACLA to tribes and/or communities
Maja tribe vs Mmaboi community Makgoba tribe vs Bjatladi tribe
Land under lease from the state/bantustans
Venda leaseholder vs Manendze tribe
In line with the government policy of land reform, in the context of the alleviation of poverty and the improvement of household welfare, the strategy of land purchase is combined with a grant for settlement. In effect, the beneficiary household may use the R15 000 grant to improve their settlements and/or tenure conditions.
Communal or tribal land has never been purchased, except for a brief period between the advent of whites in South Africa and the 1936 Land Act when Africans were prohibited from buying land. Even the apartheid government failed to eradicate the system of communal tenure under tribal rule.
The Interim Constitution has guaranteed the existence of Chieftaincy. Chieftaincy does not exist in a vacuum, but goes together with land. Tribal groups have continued to demand land from the democratic government, just as they did with the apartheid government. The government policy of land purchase is, therefore, not a response to the land demands of the majority population.
A number of people have formed Community Trusts to access the Land Acquisition Grant. The distribution of the projects registered is reflected in Table 3. The provincial variation in the number of projects is a reflection of the concentration of work by the former (pre-1994) Department of Regional and Land Affairs.
The Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Bill of 1995 is currently under discussion. Labour tenants as described in the Bill excludes the majority of Africans who have remained on the white racial space, despite the onslaught on Kaffir farming dating back to 1913. However, those who are covered by the Bill will qualify for the Land Acquisition Grant. Hence, the strong opposition to the Bill has come from the South African Agricultural Union. Considering that the present farmers have to be willing sellers of land that is presently used by labour tenants, the prospects for land reform under this category are doomed.
In addition to the regular hardships of labour tenancy, the imminence of land reform has exacerbated the evictions of labour tenants and farm workers/residents. For example, it was reported in 1992 that in a 10-year period, the depopulation of rural areas was at the alarming rate of 11 000 to 22 000 inhabitants per rural town in the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
A generally unacknowledged fact is that the exacerbation of evictions from the white farmland has added to the overcrowding in communal/tribal land. Yet, there is no provision in the land reform (redistribution) policy to respond directly to the land demands of tribal groups.
Table 3 LAND FOR REDISTRIBUTION THROUGH THE REDISTRIBUTION PROGRAMME 1993-95 AT R73 529 MILLION
Province
Area (ha)
Mpumalanga
10 142
Kwazulu-Natal
9 184
Northern Cape
6830
Eastern Cape
2 370
North West
859
Gauteng
-
Free State
-
Northern Province
-
Western Cape
-
Total
29 385
TENURE REFORM
THERE HAS BEEN A CONSISTENT TREND TO avoid issues of land reform, i.e. redistribution by concentrating on land tenure reform (the redistribution of land rights in South Africa's communal/tribal land). From the Glen Grey Act of 1894 to the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights Act of 1991, there has been an attempt by the government, with the support of academics, to convert communal/tribal land tenure into freehold ownership.
The official rationale for the conversion has changed from time to time (see Table 4). Government policy presently recognizes the diversity of land tenure systems. However, upgrading is still advocated for reasons of equality. The interim constitutional provisions for equality before the law and no discrimination on the ground of inter alia, race and gender, have been the key weapons against both communal tenure and customary law.
A combination of upgrading of land rights by individuals within communal/tribal land, and the fact that there are no plans to increase communal tribal land through the government redistribution programme, may finally destroy the system of communal tenure by the democratic government.
Conclusion
WRITING ELSEWHERE THE AUTHOR HAS stated that:
"Confiscation and compensation are the least of the problems that will be faced in the redistribution of land by the future majority government. One issue that will have to be resolved is how to transfer the land to the landless majority population, that is, what social production relations will be chosen by the people" (Letsoalo, 1994,: 214).
The negotiated political settlement in South Africa precluded any confiscation of land. The inevitability of this was no excuse for the provisions in the property clause that: on expropriation, compensation shall be at market-value; that only land rights lost after 1913 shall be restored; and that beneficiaries of land reform shall buy land from the state and private landowners.
The present analysis shows that the land reform policies are based on the market economy. The apartheid government was responsible for this strategy, since the mixed economy that was preached by the Liberation Movement was never clearly spelled out.
The final Constitution of South Africa is expected by 9 May 1996. Therefore, the prospects for an authentic land reform are still open. Indeed, major role-players in the land policy debate, namely, the National Land Committee and the African National Congress, have called for a non-market-based land reform and a more land reform-friendly property clause, respectively (NLC, 1995; and Pretoria News 31/1/96).
Table 4 CHANGING LAND TENURE POLICIES, 1950-1991
A. TENURE
1950s*
®
REJECTION OF CONVERSION TO FREEHOLD
1980s**
®
COERCION TO FREEHOLD
1990s***
®
UPGRADING TO FREEHOLD (Pre-Independence)
1990s****
®
UPGRADING TO FREEHOLD (Post-Apartheid)
®
TRUST vs TRIBE
* Culture **Modernization ***Equality ****Equality & Security
B. ACCESS
1913
®
RESERVES
1936
®
TRUST ® ALLOCATION
1991
®
ABOLITION OF 1913 & 1936 LAND ACTS
1991
®
WILLING-SELLER-WILLING-BUYER
The emotive response from both the present landowners and potential beneficiaries of land reform shows that the government's reconciliation and RDP cannot be achieved with a land reform policy that ensures that the beneficiaries of apartheid are compensated justifiably, while the former victims of apartheid have to pay for the land. The route to follow is for the government to use the same resources intended to subsidize willing buyers for the purchase of land and its free redistribution to the poor landless majority for residential and productive purposes.
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