"Public Hearings On Land Reform Underway"

BuaNews (Pretoria)
by Nombini Matomela
Cape Town

Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza says people need to appreciate the progress made in land reform, especially in the first five years of this country's democracy.

Minister Didiza presented a brief overview on the developments regarding land reform in the country at public hearings underway at Parliament yesterday.

During the next two days, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Agriculture and Land Affairs will hear public submissions on the pace of land reform in the country ten years into democracy.

"The purpose for the hearings is to help all of us as a country to reflect on whether or not the mechanism we have chosen to use have assisted us in fulfilling a commonly held objective of bringing equity in ownership of resources," she said.

She said while everybody talked about the pace of land reform, there was also a need to look at the totality of other things that impacted on each other on this subject.

"Because if we are to look at the pace without collective understanding of the context, we may miss an opportunity to reflect on what needs to be done."

She pointed out that the first five years served as the building block that would have enabled government to move faster in the next phase of land reform.

Regarding the land restitution programme, she said only 41 claims were settled by March 1999 adding that this was consistent with the challenges experienced at that time.

"However, if you were to undertake both qualitative and quantitative research we will all agree that in certain programmes we have accelerated more than what anybody could contemplate," she said.

Minister Didiza said after 1999 government managed to improve its delivery track record particularly in the restitution arena. As a result, more than 56 000 claims had been settled to date.

However, she said there was a need for a summit to evaluate whether the mechanism used in undertaking the land reform processes were adequate or relevant to the South Africa's situation.

This would assist to examine whether the process really translated into assisting the landless, supported those who had received land in a sustainable manner.

"I think this is one of the way in which if it starts locally it can help us to look at the global picture being informed by the realities of our different districts."

She said the challenge facing the country, "will be how do we through this process of engagement with Parliament as well as ourselves, have an output that will guide us towards fulfilling a mandate that all of us agreed about."

The hearings end tomorrow.