The Land Question Part 2: Why is Malema bent on getting the land back?
The African National Congress (ANC) has always supported land reform. In their first ever political manifesto in 1994, they committed to “guarantee victims of forced removals restitution, which should be carried out fairly through a Land Claims Court” and to “use state land in the implementation of land reform.”
The Restitution Act was passed in 1994 to deal with restoring land rights to those dispossessed by the Natives Land Act, to establish a Commission on Restitution of Land Rights and a Land Claims Court; and to provide for matters connected to this.
The Act has been amended twice since then, in 1998 and 2014, to allow for extensions on the cut-off dates for people to file their land claims. However, it has failed dismally.
“Since 1994, about eight million hectares of the total of 86 million hectares of white-owned farmland have been transferred to black South Africans through land restitution and redistribution. Government’s initial target in 1994 was to transfer 30% of agricultural land by 1999, but slow progress led to the target date being moved to 2014,” wrote Professor Ben Cousins in his paper: Land reform in South Africa is sinking. Can it be saved?, commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
“Several thousand large rural restitution claims are yet to be resolved, and about 20,000 settled restitution claims have yet to be implemented. Amendments to the law in 2014 allow hundreds of thousands of new claims to be lodged up until 2019,” he added.
Follow the link below to read part two of the Land Question: Why is Malema bent on getting the land back?
