At a meeting this week of the NCOP’s Select Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, the Department of Land Reform once again cited funding shortfalls as the reason for its persistent failure to resolve thousands of long-standing land claims – some dating back to before 1998. This is not true, and it is no longer acceptable.
To date, over R52 billion has been spent on land restitution. And yet, more than 5 700 land claims lodged before the original 1998 cut-off remain unresolved, with provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga carrying the heaviest backlogs.
This is a gross failure of planning, leadership, and political will – not merely a budget issue.
The Department has failed to process existing claims despite having had the legal framework, time, and funding to do so. If it cannot manage what it already has, it cannot be trusted with more.
The Department’s own reports highlight ongoing institutional breakdowns, including:
- Reliance on manual systems and a lack of digitisation;
- Poor coordination between the Department, the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights, CPAs and municipalities;
- Inadequate post-settlement support;
- Confused mandates between the Department and the Commission; and
- No visible consequence management for ongoing underperformance.
In addition, corruption and the overpricing of land acquisitions have further undermined the integrity and effectiveness of the redress process.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) firmly believes in the need to redress the injustices of the past, particularly through fair and lawful land reform that restores dignity and economic opportunity to dispossessed communities. However, this redress must occur within the ambit of the Constitution and the rule of law – which Expropriation Without Compensation does not meet.
The Department’s failure to deliver on its existing mandate proves that it is not capable of handling more. Attempts to conceal this failure with a push for more radical, economically destructive policies in land reform must be rejected outright. If the Department cannot get the basics right, no amount of smoke and mirrors can deliver meaningful land reform.
What is needed now is a credible restitution recovery plan – including performance-linked funding and accountability mechanisms, a cross-departmental restitution fund, public quarterly reporting of land claims by province, and a comprehensive transparency and consequence management system for non-delivery.
The real failure in land reform is not the Constitution – it is government inefficiency, maladministration, and corruption.