Will beneficiaries of Ramaphosa’s land deal be real owners, or just tenants?

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) welcomes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of the release of state land into the hands of new farmers – but remains perturbed about whether the goal is to create owners or merely lifelong tenants.

The IRR has long campaigned for the granting of title deeds to beneficiaries of state land as the first step to conferring agency, and dignity, on recipients.

President Ramaphosa this week announced that 2.5 million hectares of land would be released to black farmers through the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLSA). The IRR has long argued that the burden of land reform is one that the government should carry itself, rather than seeking to impose it arbitrarily on individuals through policies such as the Expropriation Act.

A significant amount of rural and urban land remains in government hands, or is being hoarded through the non-release of title deeds. While the President’s announcement goes some way to addressing concerns about the wasted potential, the government needs to go further in affording landless and deedless South Africans the dignity of the right to own.

Says Makone Maja, IRR strategic engagements manager: “The PLSA has been described as a leasehold system, one that grants land beneficiaries a right to live and develop the land, but stops short of affording these beneficiaries the right to own. Research by analyst and Daily Friend writer Ivo Vegter exposes the reality that land released through the PLSA has essentially been subjected to rental arrangements and has not amounted to transferring ownership.”

As Vegter points out, “The effect was to turn black farmers into tenants of the state. A tenant cannot mortgage the land to raise working capital. A farmer with an uncertain lease has little reason to sink money into boreholes, orchards or soil that the state may take back.”

In August this year, the Institute approached various government departments to stress the importance of clearing the backlog of over one million title deeds. The IRR also approached the South African Human Rights Commission to declare this backlog a human rights violation based on government data indicating a likely disproportionate impact on women.

Title is at the core of IRR efforts to persuade the government to distribute underutilised public land. The Institute’s draft legislation, the Right to Own Bill, codifies a government land redistribution and development programme as well as implementation mechanisms. The Bill demands that the government provide annual records of all title deeds issued in that year as well as state land that has been distributed.

“Land redistribution programmes that keep black beneficiaries in a state of perpetual uncertainty about their security of tenure requires considerable revision. After all, if the government’s land reform projects do not confer the right to own, then what exactly about the apartheid era’s deprivation of black land ownership has it reformed?” Maja asks.

Media contact: Makone Maja, IRR Strategic Engagements Manager Tel: 079 418 6676 Email: makone@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris IRR Head of Media Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za