Durban -The government wants land owned by community property associations to be first offered for sale to the state as part of its restitution programme.
This emerged yesterday when the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform made a presentation on the Communal Property Association Amendment Bill to the select committee on land and mineral resources.
The bill tightens regulations of CPA and ensures they are properly governed.
The department’s legal adviser, Sello Ramasala, said there had been challenges with 1500 registered CPAs. These included the extent of the state’s intervention and governance problems in CPA committees.
“When the department tries to intervene and ensure there is compliance, it gets challenged by the same CPAs to say the department has no business to interfere,” Ramasala said.
The problems extended to failure to report on financial affairs and holding regular meetings. There were also instances of CPA members serving on committees looking only after their interests, Ramasala said.
“The CPA committees would dispose of property without consulting, engaging or approval of the community. The bill tries to come up with provisions that will strengthen accountability.”
Now, the bill provides for the office of the CPA to be headed by a registrar, empowered to dissolve CPAs or dismiss their members. It empowers the registrar to appoint a mediator to resolve disputes.
“We have had instances where CPA members have killed one another; where they are always in courts fighting over CPA property,” he said.
The bill also provides for the disposal of CPA land to be first offered for sale to the state, and that a majority of the community agree to the sale of their land. “It is to ensure that the department’s restitution programme succeeds.”
The ANC’s Ellen Prins said the bill was a move in the right direction, and would hopefully resolve problems in the troubled Riemvasmaak CPA.
Her colleague, Nomawethu Gqiba, expressed concern that the registrar was given power to dissolve CPAs without ministerial approval.
The DA’s Jacques Julius questioned why the bill was being considered when the team led by former president Kgalema Motlanthe to review laws passed post-1994, had advised otherwise. “I can’t understand why the department persists while there is so much happening on land reform which will impact on what we are doing now,” he said.
Julius described the minister and registrar’s involvement as “overreach” in the management of private land by the CPAs.
But, Ramasala said the bill provided for “measured” interventions when assistance of the department was required.
The team led by Motlanthe had identified that community members complained about CPAs that regarded the associations’ property as their own, he said.
“We try to resolve the challenge raised in the high level panel,” Ramasala said. CPAs did not own property in isolation from beneficiary communities.