6th Parliament Committee Legacy Report

Meeting report

Committee Legacy Report

Dr Tshililo Manenzhe, Committee Content Advisor, who was accompanied by Ms Tembisa Pepeteka, Committee Researcher, began by explaining his role to the Committee and the legal context of the legacy report. He said the report had been developed over the last five years and was adopted by the previous Committee. The report was a useful tool for the Committee to use as it develops its strategic direction, and as a reference as it considers its future endeavours.

Dr Manenzhe pointed out that the mandate of the Committee was derived from the Constitution of the Republic, but many challenges prevented the Committee and, indeed, the Department from fulfilling their mandate as required by the Constitution. He mentioned a mixed bag of communal land ownership tenure models with mixed results. He said section 42 of the Constitution allowed for communal land tenure, but here there was the question of what the best vehicle to hold the land under was. Some was land held under trusts, other lands under cooperatives, and some held in the custodianship of kings and chiefs.

He noted the challenges faced by each of these land ownership models, and made an example of the Ingonyama Trust and the Ingonyama Board. He said the Ingonyama Trust had only the king as trustee and generated its own revenue, but there was no clarity as to how many land tenures the trust administers. The Ingonyama Board had been found to have a lot of irregularities, such as not keeping proper records and being lacking in accountability. As a result of the problems with the Ingonyama Trust and Board, residents were not sure of their ownership of the land or property, as no title deeds were issued. As a consequence, residents could not get the full benefits of land ownership, such as using the land or property as collateral to get bank loans. He asked what the alternative land ownership models were, and said that in his opinion, the Communal Property Association (CPA) model was the most popular.

Another challenge Dr Manenzhe highlighted was that land restitution was allowed under Section 25(7) of the Constitution, but the “willing seller, willing buyer” method used faced many challenges, such as the over-valuation of properties. Questions had been asked about the wisdom of paying current market value to farmers or land owners who got land from the state and were provided with equipment to work the land for free.

Another hindrance was that the state focused on restitution of land more than redistribution. He pointed out that the biggest problems with land claims through the courts were that the true owners of the land did not have documentation of their ownership of such lands, and that the settlement of the land claims was too slow. Even though land acquisition by the state did not take too long, the actual redistribution took too long. This had caused headaches for farmers who felt insecurity of tenure while they had to pay rates and comply with other requirements. Although it was illegal to evict farmers and farm workers from properties or occupied land, the practice continued because there was no nationwide monitoring of evictions.

Dr Manenzhe said that despite numerous reports on the land question, there had been a noticeable lack of follow-up on many recommendations. In this regard, he mentioned the White Paper adopted after 1994 and the high level panel commission report led by former President Kgalema Motlanthe. He concluded that there was a need for a post-1994 plan for the redistribution of land.

Among challenges that cripple the Department, vacancies in some key positions persist, so there would always be a lack of institutional memory, instability and lack of continuity within the Department when major positions remained on an acting basis, and others remained unfilled.

Dr. Manenzhe recommended that this Committee of the 7^th Administration coordinate joint efforts with other departments, such as agriculture, to streamline priorities in order to deal with issues such as the Ingonyama Trust. He asked the Committee to work with various other committees and other entities to ensure that Members receive reports at least 48 hours prior to meetings, in order to maximise effective engagements.

See attached for further information

The Chairperson welcomed the report and thanked the presenters. He then opened the meeting for discussion of the presentation by Members of the Committee.

Discussion

Mr M Nhanha (DA) commented that if the previous Committee had already adopted the legacy report, he was not sure what they were expected to do with it, especially if they found some defects with it. He noted that the previous Committee seemed to have focused on land reform, while rural development was just as important.

He wanted to know what the impediments to filling the vacancies within the Department were, as this contributed to it not being able to fulfil its mandate in an efficient manner. It was unfair to expect current employees to do extra work because some positions remained vacant, and equally unfair to hire somebody for a year or without a contract, or for an unfunded position.

He asked why the Ingonyama Trust accounted to Parliament when they generated their own revenue and were not funded by the state. He wanted to know whether Parliament knew exactly who administered the tenures under the Trust.

He suggested that it should be ensured that Members of Committees receive reports at least 48 before a meeting. He commented that there had been issues before with some principals, like Ministers, who refused to come and account to Committees, and asked what mechanisms were available to ensure that people did come to account to Parliament.

Mr Z Mthethwa (MK) said he had done a thorough analysis of the Legacy Report, and in it there had been nothing on what had changed in terms of land ownership patterns in South Africa since 1913. He asked if there were any documents or reports that detailed these ownership patterns since 1994 and if so, how much the patterns of land ownership had changed.

He told of his own family history with land dispossession, and the struggle they had been going through in efforts to reclaim their land. He said that after the forced removals of the Mthethwa clan from their lands, they had begun putting together documents and evidence of their ownership of the land, and in 1997, his grandfather had formally laid a land claim case, but nothing had been done. The case had been re-opened in 2002, but there were still unexplained stumbling blocks for the finalisation of the claim, and he asserted that the real reason for the delay was because the state had sold the land to big business. Big corporations that owned rich lands where Africans had been forcefully removed included Anglo-American, Exxaro and other major corporations.

He said that his family’s plight was not unique, but served to illustrate the land ownership patterns in the country since 1913. When the white government passed the Land Act in 1913, which effectively left native Africans with less than 13% of the land, they also passed the Banking Act, and he added that it was the same year that the United States Reserve Bank had been established. He added that white South Africans had been financed by American and British banks to develop and work the lands they had dispossessed Africans of. As a result, South Africa was registered as a corporation with debts in the United States stemming from this period.

The Chairperson asked Mr Mthethwa to restrict his contributions to the contents of the Legacy Report.

Mr Mthethwa said that it was unfortunate that major issues of contestation were not clearly defined. He asked the Committee to define whether the land should be owned by the state, or by the chiefs and kings as it had been historically. He said there needed to be direct land repossession from those who had gained it illegally and furthermore, additional interest on the value of the land must be added and paid by those who had benefited from their ill-gotten gains.

Mr B Madikizela (DA) said that it was clear that government was not keeping up with its challenges or taking its challenges seriously, and that should not be the case, given the R2.1 trillion budget of the Department. The land issue was an emotive one and therefore needed to be handled carefully, because it could lead to instability. If handled properly, it would result in investments, business opportunities, employment and rural development. People needed to be given title deeds, as that would give them security. He added that the right tenure system could also be useful, and in this regard, he referred to the 2.1 million tenures that he said were administered by the Ingonyama Trust.

Mr M Gigaba (ANC) asked what was meant by rural development, and what the big idea was when Members talked about it. Did Members want to turn rural areas into urban areas when talking about rural development? He said that one of the challenges limiting success in this work was that different entities and committees worked in silos, pointing out that a lot of departments, such as Agriculture, Trade, Industry and Competition, all had budgets for rural economic activities. He suggested that the Committee look into coordinating the efforts of these different entities, and streamline the work to get better results.

Mr Gigaba also asked about the impact of climate change and technology on agriculture and employment.

Dr W Boshoff (FF+) said that the Committee was a custodian of a potential conflict-causing matter, as the issue of land was very emotional for different reasons. Land was cultural, and therefore a point of reference for identity, as well as an economic issue. It was for that reason that land was used as collateral to obtain loans from banks, and the Banking Act of 1913 was in recognition of that reality. He preferred traditional communal land ownership, and warned that issuing title deeds could backfire, as these were not neutral. He mentioned that there were no good examples of land ownership models throughout Africa. He expressed a desire for this Committee to deal with these matters knowing that others may want to emulate its approach.

Ms R Adams (ANC) wanted clarity on the bills that had been submitted, and asked whether the land rights restitution bill still needed a second submission. She asked about the 5.2 hectares of land under the Ingonyama Trust, and for the lists of the 7% that were CPA compliant and of the 7% that would apparently never be able to comply. She insisted that these issues needed to be addressed, while at the same time “leaving no one behind.”

Ms S Lucas (ANC) pointed out that the Committee had inherited this report, and should look at ways in which it could help in proposing strategic land reform. She wanted to know about cases where restitution had been successful.

Mr S Matiase (EFF) accepted the report as his legacy, because he had been a Member of the Committee through the five years the report had been developed. He said the Committee needed a strategic planning session to discuss the report in order to come up with a strategic direction of priorities. He wondered why Mr Gigaba, Mr Madikizela and Mr Nhanha felt that the Department was not taking its challenges seriously when they had been around over the years, and mentioned the R26 billion budget for the whole undertaking of land reform and rural development.

He wanted to know what was meant by land and agrarian reform, and further stated that if this was left undefined, misunderstanding would hinder implementation. He bemoaned that Members still were facing undefined mandates which should have been implemented after 1994 in documents such as “Ready to Govern”, and suggested that the strategic plan could deal with these issues.

Mr M Mrara (ANC) wanted to know what the scope of work for the Committee was, given that the report had already been adopted by the previous Committee, and asked if that fact prohibited the Committee from questioning certain grey areas in the report. He said there needed to be an evaluation of the work done so far on the land question, and a comprehensive report was needed that would show patterns of land ownership since 1913 and how those had changed since 1994. He added that the Committee would also need these patterns of land ownership broken down by province so that lists could be developed that showed a clearer picture of each province. He wanted a breakdown of the land ownership models used in the country, such as land left to churches, businesses and royals, and also wanted the issue of the Khoi and San people addressed. He said the issue of the budget needed to be deliberated upon, as the Committee was tasked with a number of responsibilities, such as bills to be pushed forward and the work of actual land reform and rural development.

He wanted to know what mechanisms were used by the Valuer-General when evaluating land and property. He said there were developments of grey areas, such as Orania and the Ingonyama Trust, that put the sovereignty of South Africa in doubt, so the Committee needed to get to the bottom of these issues.

Response

Ms Pepeteka said that the Committee was free to hold a strategic planning session to develop its own priorities. The challenge of unfilled vacancies within the Department was an ongoing concern for them, and they were told every time they enquired that the administrators were “working on it.”

She said that the Ingonyama Trust was established by an Act of Parliament at the dawn of democracy to achieve certain things. Therefore, even though the Trust generates its own revenue, Parliament must still exercise its oversight duties over it to ensure that it is doing what it had been established to do. She acknowledged there were problems with the Ingonyama Trust, such as leases not being paid and the lack of administrative controls and financial accountability.

She commented that there was an emphasis on land reform more than rural development. She said that the National Development Plan (NDP) encouraged rural economic development, and the question was what had been done in the area of rural economic activity.

Dr Manenzhe suggested that the proposed strategic planning session of the Committee should begin next to give time to the Department and the executive as a whole to deal with their annual performance plans (APPs) and clarify their priorities. He pointed out that land restitution was focused on land redress, giving land back to those forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and given once-off leases to undo the historical patterns of land ownership. In this regard, the issue of the Mthethwa claim was very specific, and he advised him to take it up with the Minister. He said land redistribution should be the focus, instead of land restitution.

Dr Manenzhe said there needed to be a debate on the land ownership models, as most of them had inherent complications. The High Level Panel Commission report had discussed these models, but it had never been followed up. He made an example of “issuing title deeds,” as some Members preferred to call them, and said problems arise when determining who to issue the title deed to in families that stayed in the same compound. There were lots of reports that touched on these issues, such as customary communal land ownership, but then again, nothing happened thereafter. The National Development Plan (NDP) encompasses all of these issues, but it was disjointed when it came to departments. There were bills in the pipeline that sought to address the matter, but some of them were still with the Presidency.

He revisited the question of what was meant by rural economic development, and wondered if it meant bringing technologies such as wi-fi to rural areas, and agreed that there needed to be a breakdown of who owned what in South Africa.

He committed to providing the Committee with other relevant reports mentioned in the legacy report. He encouraged the Committee to deal with the issues raised by the failures of the “willing buyer, willing seller” arrangement, and the land expropriation without compensation debate.

The Chairperson thanked the staff, and suggested that the Committee should consider forming an entity that would process all the outstanding issues, including reports that had not been followed up and needed attention. This entity should also consider coordinating with other departments on relevant issues.

Committee minutes

The Committee adopted minutes from past meetings.

The meeting was adjourned.