Landowners may in future be forced to declare their property with the minister of land affairs as the government tries to step up the pace of land redistribution, MPs were told on Wednesday.
“Everybody should declare, even Lulu Xingwana should declare, to the minister of land affairs that I have so many houses and how many farms do I have and what am I doing with those farms and who my co-owners are,” Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana told the National Assembly in isiXhosa.
The government was also looking at new ways of regulating land ownership by trusts and companies to ensure that people did not “hide” behind them.
‘What is clear to us is the need to regulate the access of land by foreigners’
She said her department was also still awaiting the finalisation of a report on land ownership by foreigners in South Africa.
She said it was believed that about three percent of land in the country was owned by foreigners and that once the report was completed it would be taken to cabinet for a decision and what steps to take.
“What is clear to us is the need to regulate the access of land by foreigners,” she told MPs.
Xingwana has repeatedly stated that if people were to be taken out of the poverty trap the pace of land reform had to be accelerated.
During her budget vote in May Xingwana said the challenge still facing the government was to ensure that the land reform targets they had set, especially the transfer of 30 percent land by 2014 and land restitution by 2008, were met.
Xingwana said on Wednesday that it was wrong to believe that the state-owned vast tracts of land that could be given over to landless groups. She said the fact of the matter was that only approximately five percent of the land was owned by the State, which was not enough to meet the needs and requirements “of the majority of the population of South Africa”.
“We have to take some of the land that belongs to the privileged groups,” she said paying special attention to those who had benefited from “dispossessions” since 1652.
“Our people have been waiting for decades, if not centuries, for their land to come back and we are pleading for people to support the movement in their efforts to ensure a fair and just redistribution of land in South Africa,” she added to applause. - Cape Argus
“Everybody should declare, even Lulu Xingwana should declare, to the minister of land affairs that I have so many houses and how many farms do I have and what am I doing with those farms and who my co-owners are,” Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana told the National Assembly in isiXhosa.
The government was also looking at new ways of regulating land ownership by trusts and companies to ensure that people did not “hide” behind them.
‘What is clear to us is the need to regulate the access of land by foreigners’
She said her department was also still awaiting the finalisation of a report on land ownership by foreigners in South Africa.
She said it was believed that about three percent of land in the country was owned by foreigners and that once the report was completed it would be taken to cabinet for a decision and what steps to take.
“What is clear to us is the need to regulate the access of land by foreigners,” she told MPs.
Xingwana has repeatedly stated that if people were to be taken out of the poverty trap the pace of land reform had to be accelerated.
During her budget vote in May Xingwana said the challenge still facing the government was to ensure that the land reform targets they had set, especially the transfer of 30 percent land by 2014 and land restitution by 2008, were met.
Xingwana said on Wednesday that it was wrong to believe that the state-owned vast tracts of land that could be given over to landless groups. She said the fact of the matter was that only approximately five percent of the land was owned by the State, which was not enough to meet the needs and requirements “of the majority of the population of South Africa”.
“We have to take some of the land that belongs to the privileged groups,” she said paying special attention to those who had benefited from “dispossessions” since 1652.
“Our people have been waiting for decades, if not centuries, for their land to come back and we are pleading for people to support the movement in their efforts to ensure a fair and just redistribution of land in South Africa,” she added to applause. - Cape Argus
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