Still no proposal to transfer land into full ownership

On the 3rd of January the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development published the Beneficiary Selection and Land Allocation Policy for public comment.

While we welcome the steps taken in this policy proposal to set out criteria for beneficiary selection, the DA is disapponted that it contains no proposal for the transfer of land into full ownership.

We welcome the policy’s intention to promote conditions to enable prviously disadvantaged citizens and targeted groups to “gain access to land”. However, this will not mean much unless clear and definite proposals are set out for land ownership.

This omission confirms the DA’s long held view that the ANC government does not truly support black South Africans’ right to land and that, in fact, they seek to be the sole custodians of the land by keeping emerging black farmers in their control as lifelong tenant farmers.

The DA firmly believes that South Africans should own their land and property and that we do not need to change the constitution to achieve this.

To this end, the DA will propse the following:

•  A full land audit to be finalised and made available as soon as possible;
• All investigations into land reform fraud to be finalised and land to be made available to sucessfull applicants;
• Land reform lists to be made public on a website;
• Outstanding land claims to be finalised in order to accertain what land parcels are still available and
• All sucessfull land reform beneficiaries to receive full title to land.