The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform released the new Green Paper on Land Reform on 31 August this year. The department's strategy for “Agrarian Transformation” aims to de-racialise the rural economy by giving rural black people reasonable access to land with secure rights.
The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform released the new Green Paper on Land Reform on 31 August this year. The department's strategy for “Agrarian Transformation” aims to de-racialise the rural economy by giving rural black people reasonable access to land with secure rights.
The new land-reform document has called for a "Recapitalisation and Development Programme". Its goal is to ensure that all land-reform farms, acquired both privately and by the state since 1994, are 100% productive.
A new single, four-tier land tenure framework has also been proposed, which integrates all current forms of land ownership, namely, state, public, private and communal.
Major talking points in the new Green Paper are those surrounding the creation of the Land Management Commission (LMC). The commission will report to Rural Affairs and Land Reform Minister, Gugile Nkwinti, while also having powers to subpoena, initiate prosecution and validate or invalidate corporate title deeds.
Due to the failure thus far of the “willing buyer, willing seller” approach to land reform, the paper proposes a Land Valuer General. The land-valuer will attempt to provide fair and consistent land values, while also determining what land owners ought to be paid in the case of government expropriation.
However, this has come under fire from both the Democratic Alliance and AfriForum, who both believe that the land-valuer is likely to start a system of price regulation which they say will undermine the free-market system.
Many critics of the Green Paper also say measures limiting the amount of land one farmer can own are unconstitutional.
The government is under pressure to speed up the process of land-reform, but the willing buyer, willing seller method has proved slow and difficult. The failure of many farms handed over under the programme has not helped the cause either, with concerns about food security looming large.
