South Africa: Rural Poor Bear The Brunt of Dysfunctional Land Reform

One major blight on the last three terms of the ANC-led government is service provision to the rural poor, and in particular the provision of land and the requisite agricultural support. In general, the ANC government’s relationship with rural South Africa has been rather nebulous, and the land question has made this even more starkly so.

For the vast majority of the country’s rural households, land is no longer the primary lifeline, as it was the case before colonial, and subsequently, apartheid land dispossession. Neither is subsistence farming, nor agriculture. With the increasing dependence on social grants these traditional modes of survival are wilting away, along with the once cherished ideals of hard work and self-determination.

The previous ANC leadership fixated on being careful not to frighten investors and other big players by any radical government intervention in the land market, and the corollary has been inadequate public investment in the rural economy, and consequently poor access to agricultural land, finance and infrastructure.

As the country approaches the fourth national democratic elections, the marginalisation of rural South Africa is emerging as a key campaign issue, with the new ANC leadership going as far as labelling it government’s single greatest failure. While the causes of this failure are varied and complex, they are not unrelated to certain deficiencies in government’s land administration practices.

Then there is the question of unscrupulous landowners who have seized the land restitution process as an opportunity to grow fat profits from grossly inflated land prices. Land officials themselves have been suspected of conniving with these landowners, in return for a share of the spoils. And to some extent the Land Affairs department has been complicit in these shady acts, namely by failing to verify whether the sellers are in fact owners of the properties sold to government. The purchase of food-producing land for golf courses and game farms has also emerged as a major issue.

Source: Institute for Security Studies