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Land
affairs
Editor,
Cape Times
August 01,
2005
http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=330&fArticleId=2787040
Two of the many perspectives
at the land summit in Johannesburg over the past five days will be of
particular pertinence to the government as it shapes its policies.
The first will be the need for concrete progress in altering the country's
vastly skewed land ownership patterns. Zimbabwe's Professor Sam Moyo warned
the conference that people tended to take the law into their own hands
if the required redress was too slow in coming.
Second, and seemingly contradictory, is the need to take a holistic approach
- not just throw land at people who might not have the skills or financial
clout to get any benefit out of it.
Land Bank general manager George Oricho pointed to some of the many challenges
confronting successful land reform: high interest rates, lack of title
deeds, no collateral, lack of training, and inadequate financial innovation.
Talk of adjustments to the "willing seller, willing buyer" principle are
driven by the first perspective. It is evident that the pace of land reform
has not been served by this principle, with government far from meeting
the targets it has set itself.
Those targets might
be somewhat ambitious: redistribution of 30% of white-owned agricultural
land into black hands by 2014. And striving for them may unintentionally
result in the need for a holistic approach being undermined. The consequences
could be disastrous both for the reform programme and for the economy
generally.
Government appears to be alive to these potential dangers. Land affairs
director-general Glen Thomas said: "A process will be put in place to
look at (these) matters because they require deeper consultation both
inside and outside of parliament, because of the dire consequences that
will result if we don't apply our minds sufficiently to them."
South Africans generally can but hope that Thomas's approach wins the
day against those who would seek a quick fix to what is an emotionally-charged
but very real problem.
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