NEHAWU supports the statement by the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti to Parliament during the department's budget vote debate that he will introduce a Green Paper on Agrarian Transformation and Land Reform outlining the government's plans to introduce a three-tier tenure system.
This is a welcome move that will hopefully introduce a new tenure system which will remove the current land reform bottlenecks and ensure progress in the states goal of ensuring equitable access to land.
NEHAWU is encouraged by the minister's bold and inspired leadership that is in line with what the African National Congress promised to the poor and mainly rural citizens of our country who have for a long time been victims of a very slow land reform process.
The ANC in its Strategy and Tactics document of 2007 placed a "high premium on redistribution of land in both urban and rural areas for the benefit of those who were denied access under colonialism". It further committed itself in its 2009 Manifesto to "put in place a comprehensive and clear rural development strategy linked to land and agrarian reform' and in also "building the potential for rural sustainable livelihoods"
It is an open secret that all current land reform programmes are not suatainable and have dismally failed to bring long lasting benefits to land reform beneficiaries and address the apartheid legacy of skewed land ownership that favours white people.
We also support the minister's promise to introduce a new legislation to replace the ineffective Extension of Security of Tenure Act {ESTA} which has failed to protect the vulnerable farm workers from unlawful and inhumane evictions.
The principle of "willing buyer willing seller" has spectacularly failed because the previous administrations have failed to invoke the constitutional provision allowing for expropriation when farmers held government to ransom with their ridiculous prices. Unfortunately this has led to billions of rands being spent to purchase the land rather than on the post-settlement support.
The union totally agrees with the minister's assertion that "national sovereignty is defined in terms of land" so there is nothing inappropriate with the state playing an active role in regulating foreign and individual ownership of land.
We look forward to the introduction of the Green Paper and a new legislation on land tenure. We hope that the process will be transparent and also include extensive and meaningful consultation process.
Statement issued by NEHAWU Communications Department, March 25 2010
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