Extend your Economic Power: own your home
Recently Mmusi Maimane, the DA Premier candidate for Gauteng, wrote on Daily Maverick of the opportunities that opened up to him through his family owning the title deed to their home. Against that title deed, they could "borrow money" making it possible at last for them to "invest in their property and extend their economic power". All of this because his family owned their home and that ownership is recognised in law in the form of a title deed.
That is what a title deed is; a small piece of paper that the law, which means the government, recognises and respects, and which, in turn means that all South Africans are forced to respect your ownership of that property.
The Free Market Foundation has persistently raised the topic of property ownership and specifically freehold title deed since well before the end of Apartheid. We have been at the centre of the land reform/ownership debate for more than four decades and have argued for fair and equal ownership for everyone no matter their race. This is why FMF was behind a Constitutional Court challenge forcing the Jo'burg City Council to allow and respect street traders' property rights and freedom to trade in the downtime city centre. The same property rights extend from the small street trader right up to the large industrial tycoon.
To kick off such an ambitious project land reform, the FMF has piloted a project in partnership with a local municipality where 33,000 title deeds will be transferred to home owners. So, soon, there will be another 33,000 families able to enjoy the opportunities that owning their own home has extended to Mmusi Maimane's family. Owning land or rather not owning land is not a racial problem. It is a South African problem. Without it, nobody can extend their economic power beyond the hours they work in a day. It is as simple as that.
Financial people call it bankability. When you have freehold title deed, you have access to more than 30 various financial instruments that enable you to extend your economic power. This is the true transfer of power to the people. It is what the Freedom Charter really means when it says "the land belongs to all who live in it". You, me, everyone - we all have the freedom to own the land we live on.
Real property ownership does not happen with the current state of housing developments known as RDP homes. Every home RDP home comes with eight year clauses that prevent new home owners from selling their property. This means that for eight years, your new house is not an active, empowering asset. For eight years, you are a pretend owner, treated like an irresponsible child, and denied access to the full benefits of property ownership. Basically a recipient of an RDP home is half a citizen.
Land reform is quite rightly a central topic in our political discourse. However in the popular psychology land reform is equated to the 40,000 farmers and this is a major error. It should be about the estimated 10 million council houses that belong to local municipalities and not the occupants, the 3 million new RDP homes built since 1994 that have restrictive and patronising title deeds. We at the FMF argue for systematic and structural land reform that is not as Julius Malema seems to imply land reform as taking from one race to give to another.
True land reform means full, freehold title property ownership. Extended property rights empowers families like Mmusi Maimane's. Millions of South Africans can be similarly empowered simply by being allowed to own the home that for decades has belonged to the government. We need more people who respect and value property rights, and fewer Malema's who see property title as an inconvenient barrier to be removed.
Leon G. Marincowitz is Projects Manager at the Free Market Foundation
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
