Johannesburg - If the ANC does not move with speed in implementing the so-called radical economic transformation, it risks losing its relevance to demagogues who will use the mantra to gain political mileage.
This is because other political parties would move in their space and amplify the country’s socio-economic problems in the “crudest form” that many would identify with.
Political analyst professor Somadoda Fikeni made these assertions on Monday during the ANC’s “Umrabulo round table discussion” on the emotive land question at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters in Joburg.
Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti and former deputy president and head of the ANC’s political school, Kgalema Motlanthe, attended the discussion, which was chaired by Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa.
Mthethwa, who is also chairman of the ANC national executive committee’s political education subcommittee, admitted that land had not been “adequately addressed by our new dispensation”.
Nkwinti concurred, saying: “The process of transferring land from minority to majority is slow. The burden of proof that is placed on land claimants is enormous. There is very little really that people have to prove. It’s their land.”
He said the government was also looking at acquiring and redistributing land that was acquired before the 1913 Land Act, which stripped blacks of all their land, was enacted.
Two weeks ago, the National Assembly passed the Expropriation Bill, paving the way for not only the expropriation of property for public purposes, such as for roads and power lines, but also to speed up land reform.
However, opposition parties, including the DA, the Freedom Front Plus and the United Democratic Movement (UDM), opposed it. The DA and the UDM believe the bill is at odds with the constitution when it comes to the definitions of property and expropriation.
The ANC pushed the bill through. The government believes the bill will provide a way to manage expropriation and will speed up land reform.
In January, President Jacob Zuma described the land dispossession from indigenous black people as “stolen land”. He was also quoted as saying the source of poverty, inequality and unemployment was land which was “taken, not bought, stolen. But the government of the people has to buy it back as if it was sold.”
On Monday, Motlanthe said the government had to identity what the land was needed for before acquiring it.
Fikeni said the country needed to examine models that could expedite the process, but warned against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe-style land grabs.
@luyolomkentane
The Star