Deputy President David Mabuza says the nation is at a watershed moment where the land question must be tackled head-on through all constitutionally compliant instruments in order to effect the necessary changes.<\/P>
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\u201cWe are at a crossroads, one possibly leading to anarchy and destruction, and the other, leading to a carefully guided land reform programme that ensures strategic land acquisition, land redistribution, and restitution of land to its rightful owners and those who need it for development,\u201d Mabuza said on Friday.<\/P>
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The Deputy President, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Land Reform and Agriculture, was speaking at the Communal Land Administration and Tenure Summit underway in Boksburg, Gauteng.<\/P>
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The two-day summit will reflect on the recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture, and deliberate on the progress made in the implementation of the 2017 resolutions of the Traditional Leaders\u2019 Indaba.<\/P>
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While accepting that land reform is a complex and emotive matter, the Deputy President affirmed government\u2019s determination to walk the path to its rightful end.<\/P>
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He emphasised that land tenure reform remains a critical component of government\u2019s land reform programme.<\/P>
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\u201cNot only is accelerated land reform a necessary condition for restorative justice, but it is a pre-condition for forging unity and social cohesion across the nation.<\/P>
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\u201cGovernment is committed to ensuring that our land reform programme delivers on the aspirations of ordinary people.<\/P>
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\u201cWhile the scope of our summit has been framed to cover land administration and tenure in communal areas, as government, we are aware of the urgent need to effect land transformation that goes beyond the 13% of communal land under the jurisdiction of traditional leaders,\u201d the Deputy President said.<\/P>
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Policy to assist in acquisition of more land <\/P>
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Mabuza said government will proceed with the available policy and legislative instruments to assist in the acquisition of more land for redistribution and expansion of communal land, \u201cespecially in areas where land has been expropriated in the public interest\u201d. <\/P>
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\u201cWe will ensure that land issues not covered in the deliberations of this narrowly focused summit are firmly placed on the agenda of the Inter-Ministerial Task Team that is seized with addressing all issues raised by traditional and Khoi-San leaders.<\/P>
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\u201cWe are encouraged that on the occasion of the Indigenous and Traditional Indaba in 2017, traditional leaders reaffirmed their commitment to, among others, the implementation of land tenure reforms and land redistribution within a developmental approach. The indaba also agreed that a summit would be convened to interrogate the transfer of land and its transformation,\u201d he said.<\/P>
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Better prospects for rural areas <\/P>
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The Deputy President said one of the imperatives of the summit is to focus on how to collectively shape the nature of land administration and tenure in communal areas, including governance, institutional coordination mechanisms, and the role of traditional leadership.<\/P>
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Mabuza said the proposals discussed and agreed to in the summit will be refined into clear policy instruments to advance land administration and tenure reforms.<\/P>
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\u201cAs we undertake this work, we must rethink the developmental dichotomy that perceives and circumscribes communal land for only human settlements and labour reserves, while urban areas and small towns are seen as sites of industrial development and job creation.<\/P>
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\u201cInstead, communal land administration and tenure must be geared to position strategic communal land for targeted industrial development in key sectors of comparative advantage.<\/P>
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\u201cWithin the framework of the District Development Model, infrastructure to support key sector value chains must be developed to concentrate value creation and employment opportunities in close proximity to where people live,\u201d the Deputy Minister said.<\/P>
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Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, warned that liberation cannot be entirely realised until the land, and what is beneath and above it, is in the control and command of the majority.<\/P>
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\u201cSouth Africa belongs to all who live in it, so the economy must belong to all who live in it and land must belong to all who live in it.<\/P>
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\u201cToday\u2019s discussion is most important because the aspirations of the people cannot be met without the land,\u201d Dlamini-Zuma said.<\/P>
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Dealing with land inequality <\/P>
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Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister, Thoko Didiza, said the summit deliberate on the important matter of land, not only confined to communal land tenure, but it will incorporate the matter of \u201cland hunger\u201d.<\/P>
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She noted that government has walked a long journey, which started a long time ago, where some of the delegates participated in the Land Summit of 2005. This is where government tried to look at what needed to be done to make sure that land reform addresses land inequality.<\/P>
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\u201cWe\u2019ve all acknowledged that the legacy of our history did create a very uneven and unequal society. <\/P>
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\u201cEven in post democratic government, we still remain with some of those unfortunate legacies, where in terms of our understanding and appreciation of tenure security of our citizens in terms of their land, there are still tensions that arise as a result of the influences of the laws of our colonisers,\u201d Didiza said.<\/P>
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Source: South African Government News Agency<\/P>
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