When the South African president Cyril
Ramaphosa assured the Zulu leader King Goodwill Zwelithini last week that the national
government had no intention of grabbing land held by or interfering with the
Ingonyama Trust, he tugged the tail of a sleeping dragon.
It is a dragon that might well return
to devour him.
Not one to neither take a sideways
step and bypass the slumbering serpent nor take a lesson from St George the
Martyr, Mr Ramaphosa sheathed his sword. Instead, he should have ripped out his
blade; challenged the beast and moved in for the kill.
It was an opportunity that he will
come to rue someday soon as discussions about land ownership and repatriation
heats up before a decision in late August. That there needs to be some form of land
reform is not in question. Ever since the Native Lands Act of 1913 and through
various bits of legislation including the Group Areas Act of 1950, the vast
majority of South Africans were deprived of and excluded from owing land.
Land reform may lead to a
redistribution of wealth and a level playing field in a country where the
overwhelming rate of poverty is high.
The Ingonyama Trust holds large
parcels of land for Zulus in the KZN region. King Goodwill controls the Trust.
On its website the Ingonyama Trust
states it “was established in 1994 by the erstwhile KwaZulu Government in terms
of the KwaZulu Ingonyama Trust Act, (Act No 3KZ of 1994) to hold all the land
that was hitherto owned or belonged to the KwaZulu Government. The mandate of
the Trust was to hold land for the benefit, material welfare and social
well-being of the members of the tribes and communities living on the land.”
When the democratic government came
into existence initially in terms of the Interim Constitution of 1993 the
original enabling Act creating Ingonyama Trust was reviewed comprehensively
such that the final product was a new Act albeit called the Amendment Act. This
Amendment Act had to meet all the constitutional requirements both in terms of
the Interim Constitution and the final Constitution of 1996.
Under the current law, King Goodwill
is the sole trustee. And in the fall out over repatriation of land, a panel led
by the former president Kgalema Motlanthe recommended that the Ingonyama Trust
Act be repealed and that the Ingonyama Trust be dissolved. The panel found that
the trust’s current practices were inconsistent with the government’s land
policy and it did not secure land tenure for residents.
This is a view shared by the Economic
Freedom Front who broke ranks with the ANC to call for the dissolution of the
trust.
When Mr Ramaphosa met with King
Goodwill it was a great opportunity to spell this out very clearly to the Zulu
king no matter the spear rattling and chants of bloodletting by aggrieved
Zulus. But the president clearly did not want to upset the Zulu leader.
There is no democratic republic of
KZN. The Ingonyama Trust debacle is an anachronism that has to be fixed before
there is any meaningful way forward as the government leans heavily towards land
reform without compensation. The focus seems to be mainly on farm land while
metropolitan land has escaped attention. This does not matter as unhoused poor
and squatter camp residents eye off the leafy suburbs with desire.
But when it comes to deceiving the
millions of impoverished South Africans living in squatter camps and locations
dotted across the country there seems to be little enthusiasm to set the record
straight. Poor South Africans who live in appalling conditions have this crazy
notion that sometime soon they will get free housing.
Some even believe they may benefit from
property that will be removed from previously advantaged people. Well to put it
bluntly, there are some who believe whites will be kicked out of their homes
and the homes will be made freely available to the poor or needy.
Of course this will never happen. Land
reform without payment is theft whichever way you look at it.
South Africa is a signatory to many
international treaties for a start and even if the government wished to reclaim
land without compensation by tweaking Constitutional guarantees, the
international reverberations will be nothing short of cataclysmic. The economy
will suffer, the rand will crash. South Africa will again be an international
pariah just like it was during the apartheid era.
This sad state of affairs already has
given cold comfort to individuals and groups who have staked out parcels of
land in Mitchells Plain and other areas of Cape Town believing they have an
entitlement to free property. It will never happen.
It has also given rise to splinter
groups feasting on appalling racism to secure special privileges and land
claims for coloureds in Cape Town. One particular group has been lobbying to
have black people returned to the Eastern Cape from where they came.
So why does the national government
not intervene and boldly advise that no one ever gets a free house and land
package anywhere on this earth. Houses and land are bought. You must work and
work and work and save and save until you have the deposit. Then you have to go
to your bank and lend the rest. Only then can you buy your house – and probably
pay it off for nearly the rest of your life.
If there is anything that can be learned
from this land reform exercise then surely it is the need for a great
improvement in basic education and a proper work ethic that enables people to
strive towards attainable goals. The government must focus on job creation
programs that will empower the people and set them on the road to self-sufficiency
and home ownership.
Meanwhile, parliament is continuing to
hold land reform hearing up until the end of this month. The Constitutional
Review Committee has undertaken a nationwide tour of public hearings on the
possible review of Section 25 of the Constitution to make it possible for the
state to expropriate land without compensation.
All this has scared off a group of about
15,000 Boer farmers who have considered plans of moving to Russia which remains
relatively underpopulated for its size. The Russians are believed to have
offered a welcoming hand to thousands of white South African farmers into its
borders to boost its agricultural industry.
According to a Russian news channel Rossiya
1 TV, the plan is for the first 30 families to first establish themselves
before more follow. Each family is said to be willing to bring at least R1.4
million ($100,000) with them to lease land in Russia and kick-start their
farming efforts.
The views expressed on this blog are
entirely my own. Feel free to use this material with suitable accreditation.
Research material is included.
Dr Hilton Kolbe is a writer and
journalist.
#southafrica #landreform @JusticeMalala
