Govt wants land audit

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Gawain

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Johannesburg - The government wants a complete audit of the country's land, Rural Development and Land Reform Deputy Minister Joe Phaahla said on Tuesday.

"We will present a green paper... on establishing a land commission to do a full audit of state and private land," he told a Constitutional symposium in Johannesburg.

A fellow panellist argued during the symposium, that the failure to conduct such an audit had contributed to the country's slow land reform.

Phaahla blamed land reform weaknesses on the application of the law and not the law itself.

"We are grateful to the crafters of our Constitution... the fundamental principles are there (in the constitution). Really, what is left for us is to implement," he said.

BMF takes issue with Constitution

However, the Black Management Forum (BMF) took issue with sections of the Constitution, among them those dealing with property rights.

BMF president Jimmy Manyi said that while these provided that "fair value" be paid when appropriating land, this had come to mean "market value" and had resulted in the government paying exorbitant amounts.

Phaahla said the question was not the adequacy of the Constitution but whether the government had "maximised" the opportunities presented by constitutional provisions.

Agreeing with Phaahla, AgriSA representative Annelize Crosby said the property clause had not been adequately tested in court.

Duma Nokwe Group of Advocates representative Vuyani Ngwalwana said the mechanisms needed for land reform were already in place in the country's legal framework.

Interpretation of legislation

The problem was the "unduly onerous interpretation" of legislation by both the government and the legal fraternity.

"I think... the interpretation of legislation has to go hand-in-hand with transformation of the judiciary.

"The way you grew up informs your thinking," he said.

Earlier, during a discussion on the constitution and socio-economic transformation, another advocate Thabane Masuku said interpretation was key in allowing the constitution to serve its intended purpose.

"I think the biggest problem is how we get institutions to give effect to the constitution... to interpret it in a way that it has an impact on the socio-economic conditions of the people."

In order for the Constitution to work as intended, the country required a judiciary that was transformed, he said.
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http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Govt-wants-land-audit-20100429

the comrades are becoming restless .... WE WANT OUR STRUGGLE REWARD !!
 
Moederloos said:
It is called the Deeds Office. Sigh.
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Yes.
Surely Government knows what land belongs to them? After all they are the Government and pay the wages of the all the people that know all this information.

How many years has it taken for someone to realise they need an audit. My question then is what information will be derived from the audit and here we will have many interpretations from the various potential stakeholders.

By saying the Judiciary needs to be transformed before all of this can be done tells me that is not only an audit they require, they want to take the land by altering the laws first. First one of course will be the willing buyer/seller, second will be the actual ownership of land being taken from the current owners by way of BEE partnerships like they did with mining, third will be the systematic wearing down of the whole agricultural sector to make farmers accept Government's payment terms and/or the Partnerships that will be part of the transformation, either way at the end of all of this current farmers might simply give up, farms will decay and our food supply will come under stress with the end result being that we will have to pay more for foodstuffs that we can obtain, the poor will of course suffer even more and while this happens the likes of JZ/JM et al will be blaming the whites for everything that goes wrong while spreading their propaganda so as to gain the votes they need to get into power.
 
I travel to the former "Transkei" all I see is plenty of unused land going fallow, now can't they use this land for emerging farmers, why take a producing farm and hand it over, 'take not create' seems to be the African way of dealing with things?

Playing with food supply?
In the end it's going to be top comrades that recieve the best and biggest farms (land), own the mines so there is an income and let the rest ROT.
It's happened in every African country, it's naive to think it will not happen here, isn't it?

Look at Namibia as example, the guvment took away farms from foreign owned people and gave it to party politicians who hire "white" people to run the thing.
 
So when government said that whites owned xx% of the land, they were thumb-sucking?
 
Moederloos said:
It is called the Deeds Office. Sigh.
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The wording should be 'Someone else has to do the audit and hand the numbers in to the Govt on a silver platter' - The only working Govt official is a dead one.
 
Ricard said:
The wording should be 'Someone else has to do the audit and hand the numbers in to the Govt on a silver platter' - The only working Govt official is a dead one.
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And then the ANC will dispute the figures and say that they need to do their own audit. This will no doubt necessitate a very large payment using government funds to a suitable Comrade.
 
I thought they had just spent 50 million on an audit.
Wasn't the outcome of that audit to their liking?

But seriously, who gives a flying fsk about who owns what percentage of the land?
The only reason that I can possibly imagine where that information would be useful if for the cadre's to get a clear picture of the land that they can "acquire" from government for themselves.

The land claims have all been assigned and ownership of the land under the claims has been fully determined 4 years ago.
Yet another self-help scheme on the go doing f-all to solve the real problem.
 
davemc said:
I thought they had just spent 50 million on an audit.
Wasn't the outcome of that audit to their liking?

But seriously, who gives a flying fsk about who owns what percentage of the land?
The only reason that I can possibly imagine where that information would be useful if for the cadre's to get a clear picture of the land that they can "acquire" from government for themselves.

The land claims have all been assigned and ownership of the land under the claims has been fully determined 4 years ago.
Yet another self-help scheme on the go doing f-all to solve the real problem.
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I like your line of thinking.

Then we must assume that what was acquired/determined was never going to be enough?
I hope the farmers resolve will be enough to endure the next onslaught from our own Government as it is evident there is an alternative agenda to all of this under the guise of land distribution as was the case in Zimbabwe.

They need to audit who will benefit and who has benefited from land distribution and make that list Public knowledge.
 
A fellow panellist argued during the symposium, that the failure to conduct such an audit had contributed to the country's slow land reform.
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So .... no-one thought about doing an audit before the land reform measures were implemented ?
 
Land reform is all good and nice, but shouldn't they first focus on the 90% of reformed land that is not being used productively by the new owners?
 
Nod said:
Land reform is all good and nice, but shouldn't they first focus on the 90% of reformed land that is not being used productively by the new owners?
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Like Hemps mentioned in post #4 about the old Transkei in the Eastern Cape.
I can confirm that there is huge tracts of land simply sitting there doing nothing, probably owned by black people, where most of the people live in the towns or go to cities like Cape Town in search of work. Plus the fact that this land is some of the most arable land in the country.
 
Hemps said:
I travel to the former "Transkei" all I see is plenty of unused land going fallow, now can't they use this land for emerging farmers, why take a producing farm and hand it over, 'take not create' seems to be the African way of dealing with things?
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Ever read the story of the ant and the grasshopper?
 
Listen, we all know the awsner why that land lies fallow and why they want other land that is being used correctly - all comes down to work ethic.
Why work for soemthing when someone else can or has done it for you!

The excuse that there are not thousands of mielies growing in the former Transkei given was that it is too expensive and far cheaper and less time consuming "work" to just buy the mielies from "town".
But what happens when the towns supply dries up as it will, judging by Guv'ments destruction and ideas on how to handle farming land, all those few plantaions that you see every now again in the Transkei are mostly funded by EU money 'giused as coming from the ANC, I know over 20 people involved in these projects and what can they do, just accept it as always, the propaganda machine is always turning.
As example: EU money intended for use to build a school, community hall, provide rain water tanks, fencing in one community . was stolen by the Butterworth municipality a few years back, the EU came back and then wanted to appoint someone to run the project and see that the money was used correctly - the Monkeypality's answer "well then we dont give want the money unless our "people" can handle it!
Lawyers got involved and the project and funds where handed to a "whitey" from the local area - now there is a school, community hall, numerous jojo tanks that where for the school but now supply the community members close by, new road and book donations.
A "member" came from Butterworth in his brand new X5 and started ranting about "whitey" taking land , the local community stoned his X5 and police where called in - wish I was there :)
 
Happy Camper said:
And you feel this will deter them from the inevitable how?
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Never said that, but possibly implied it, yes.
The list will show who has gained from the land redistribution and possibly whether they are being unfairly enriched. For instance it is now common knowledge that JM owns significant holdings in South African mines through the shares he owns in several Companies, plus Companies he owns shares in have been awarded multimillion rand civil contracts. The point is people like him, people who in my opinion have become financially emancipated should stand at the back of the queue, although I fear they are the ones going to be grovelling in the trough for as much as they can gain for themselves and their pals. It is the way things are done in Africa, take while diverting attention away from yourself.

I think this time they are not going to get it right, there will be legal challenges to prevent it, propaganda spewed left right and centre by these shenani-gans, but at the end of it all the Tsotsis will be exposed for who they are and the Boers will retake what was theirs, hopefully peacefully.
 
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BTTB said:
Never said that, but possibly implied it, yes.
The list will show who has gained from the land redistribution and possibly whether they are being unfairly enriched. For instance it is now common knowledge that JM owns significant holdings in South African mines through the shares he owns in several Companies, plus Companies he owns shares in have been awarded multimillion rand civil contracts. The point is people like him, people who in my opinion have become financially emancipated should stand at the back of the queue, although I fear they are the ones going to be grovelling in the trough for as much as they can gain for themselves and their pals. It is the way things are done in Africa, take while diverting attention away from yourself.

I think this time they are not going to get it right, there will be legal challenges to prevent it, propaganda spewed left right and centre by these shenani-gans, but at the end of it all the Tsotsis will be exposed for who they are and the Boers will retake what was theirs, hopefully peacefully.
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Amen brother, lets hope common sense and fairness prevails, not that that has ever worked for Africa before but hey I'll contribute toward the positive thinking pool!
 
The timing of this is pretty interesting. Julias "Mamparra" Malema starts mouthing off about land reform and government begin start putting together new committees to "analyse" the situation. Mamparra hops off to Zim, who coincidently performed the same "audits" before their supposed reform began, and comes back mouthing off even louder about land reform and nationalisation. Bang, the government now decide that an audit is necessary. Begs the question, who's really calling the shots in the presidency? And is Mamparra really heading off to these "learning seminars" in his capacity as ANCYL president, or is th presidency not actually sending him off for their own agenda?
 
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