The expropriation of land without compensation is a possibility in future if the current leadership fails to speed up land reform, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Gugile Nkwinti reportedly said.
City Press reported on Sunday that Nkwinti told the newspaper it was important to be “realistic” about the call of the ANC Youth League for the forced takeover of land to speed up redistribution.
He said he was not worried about the ANCYL’s call for a change of tack in land reform policy.
“I spoke to (ANCYL president) Julius (Malema) on the Monday of the week after the conference.
“Julius says we as the youth league put the matter the way we think we should put it, and says the minister will have to find a way of putting it in government language. That’s my job and he was correct.
“Remember these are young people who are also concerned about their future. They are actually saying to us: think about it, it’s going to be us tomorrow, what are you going to leave for us.
“I think it’s very important that it happens now because you have people in the ANC government and the ANC itself who still have credibility among the people,” he said.
The department’s land redistribution programme had been moving slowly over the past few years.
So far, only 7.4 million hectares of the 25 million hectares of farm land the department aimed to distribute by 2014 had been transferred to previously disadvantaged South Africans.
Nkwinti had ordered an audit of state land to establish how many hectares the state controlled, City Press reported. - Sapa