The African philosopher, Pan Africanist and first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkruma once said: “Seek ye first the political kingdom and the rest shall follow.”
The end of apartheid and the establishment of a government elected by the majority in April 1994 signified the attainment of the political kingdom, referred to by Nkruma. Its been 17 years since South Africa achieved freedom and it seems that the “rest” (economic freedom) which was supposed to “follow” has eluded the masses.
What has followed is a turning point in South Africa’s political discourse, in the sense that the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) has resorted to a Pan Africanist view that was advocated in the 1950s; that the land belongs to black South Africans. The Pan African Congress (PAC) of Azania’s rhetoric has found its way into the view point of the ANCYL’s perception on land ownership.
In 1959, the PAC was formed at Orlando Community Hall after they objected to the substitution of the 1949 Programme of Action with the Freedom Charter of 1955. Some disgruntled members of the ANC youth wing broke away, forming the PAC on the basis that black South Africans are the rightful owners of South African land.
The call last week by ANCYL president Julius Malema to expropriate land from white farmers without compensation has received mixed responses from the agricultural sector. It is important to look at what is at stake, when such views from the past are placed in the present context. The agricultural sector in South Africa was said to be worth R130 billion in asset values in 2009, with land and fixed income in the sector valued at R124bn. In addition, the machinery component of the sector was valued at R40bn and livestock at R50bn.
Commercial farmers have criticised Malema’s statement, and questioned his knowledge of economics.
Mike Vink, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Stellenbosch, highlighted the complexities associated with expropriating land without compensation, and revealed that on average, the ownership of farms changes hands every 10 years.
Black South Africans were usurped from their land during the colonial and apartheid period, and were allocated unproductive and uneconomic land. However, generations have passed and the ownership of land has changed hands over the decades. A person who bought land back in 1998, can argue that it was not his forefathers “who had stolen the land because it was bought legitimately under the guidelines of the constitution”.
“The argument that land belongs to whites is flawed, because land belongs to individuals. People bought farms every 10 years and most farms have been traded with different owners, this would make it unconstitutional to expropriate land without compensation,” Vink said.
He also believed that the expropriation of land without compensation could deter investment in the sector. However, the impact would be less severe in South Africa because agriculture is a smaller part of the economy, and redistribution would only provide equal distribution of income, not economic growth and development. A greater emphasis should be placed on education and market access for emerging farmers, he said.
Malema madness
Johannes Möller, the president of Agri SA, questions Malema’s knowledge of economics. “He doesn’t know anything about economics and it seems like he is favouring policies that turned Africa into a famine ridden continent.”
He criticised governments approach to establishing new farmers, claiming that “government policy on how to establish new farmers had failed. And, if it does become government policy to expropriate land without compensation, Agri SA was prepared to take the matter to the constitutional court and the international court because the policy has never worked anywhere in the world”, he said.
“Countries such as Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique became the poorest in the world because of such policies. We need to establish a viable commercial farming sector,” Möller argued. He pointed out that Agri SA was working on a new contract farming model where commercial farmers enter into a contract with emerging farmers. This would see new farmers being established, which would enable them to buy land on the free market.
Last week, Malema said the ANCYL would make it government policy to start expropriating land without compensation in an effort to ensure speedy redistribution among the population. The Star cited Malema as saying: “At the rate we are going now, it means we will only be able to expropriate 5 percent of land every 20 years, meaning it will take us 100 years to expropriate 20 percent. We will not be part of that failure.”
Malema presented various arguments for his call. First, he argued that colonisers did not compensate black South Africans when their land was usurped from them. Second, he said that the government did not have the finances to buy all the land.
“What we are saying is that the land must be shared equally. If you have 1 000ha, you must give us 800ha so you remain with 200ha, and we can share the 800ha among the people. This must happen within the constitutional framework because we respect the law,” he said.
This argument presents two dilemmas that are likely to impede expropriation without compensation. The first argument is based on allocating a huge chunk (80 percent) of productive agricultural land to a largely unskilled (thanks to apartheid) black population.
While the intentions might seem noble and nationalistic to some, the reality is that black South Africans were denied the opportunity to obtain the skills required for efficient agricultural production.
Given this scenario, shouldn’t the emphasis be placed on educating the rural population first before moving on to expropriation? The purpose of keeping black South Africans uneducated was to ensure that they stayed at the bottom of the economic ladder to serve the apartheid and colonial regimes as labourers and slaves. The denial to an adequate education in the agricultural sector is evident in the endless initiatives put in place by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, which has realised that black farmers are struggling primarily because of a lack of skills, funding and market access.
Towards the end of last year, it was established that 222 black farmers were bailed out to the tune of R232.4 million by the department, after they failed to pay back their start up loans to the Land Bank.
Section 25 of the South African constitution says that: “Property may be expropriated only in terms of law of general application, for a public purpose or in the public interest; and subject to compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court.”
Amending acts
An official of high standing at the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was possible to amend the expropriation act, but conceded that it was a long process and the government was anxious to implement it. “They want it to happen but they don’t see it happening now. You must not forget that we have a black government and they welcome it. The government serves the people, and people want land,” he said.
He said the current state of chaos in South Africa’s land redistribution policy should be attributed to “greedy” farmers who sold unproductive land to a desperate government for exorbitant prices.
“The farmers have themselves to blame for the ANCYL’s position on the issue because they made it impossible for land expropriation to work. They want lots of money for unproductive farms which are no longer resourceful and then… say that black farmers can’t maintain the farms. The struggling black farmers have been set up for failure, which has also left the black government picking up the pieces and paying off the debt left by apartheid,” he said.
Mike Mlengana, the president of the African Farmers Association of South Africa agreed with Malema’s remarks that the willing-seller-willing-buyer approach to land redistribution was not working. The process was also plagued by collusion between the seller and land evaluator to increase prices, especially if the government was purchasing, alleged Mlengana. “The price not only increases but it becomes distorted in value. Then you can’t sell the land because the price has ballooned, which is fraud.”
Another issue with this approach was that once the government had bought the farm, the original owners continued to occupy the land, slowing down the process. This results in black farmers getting the “scraps” while one white farmer has 3 000ha. Given the money that was paid by the government, black farmers should be occupying 50 percent of the required target, but are far away from achieving that figure, he said. - Ayanda Mduli