Land crisis looming for SA (23-11-06)

akening status of private property rights in SA, and could lead to a mass exodus of farmers.
The 1913 Natives’ Land Act set aside some 87 percent of the country’s land for the exclusive use of the white minority.
Land that is deemed suitable for crop production is only 13 % and much of it is still in the hands of the whites. Following liberalization in the mid-1990s, productivity in the agricultural sector rose substantially.
Though primary agriculture contributed only 2.6 percent to South Africa’s gross domestic product in 2005, it accounted for 8 percent of South Africa’s exports and employed 9 percent of the country’s formal employees.
The government’s apparent willingness to sacrifice property rights on the altar of populism, however, could seriously undermine confidence in its commitment to predictable and sound public policies, especially to property rights generally.
In Zimbabwe, for example, forced expropriation of the white farmers led to the collapse of the country’s banking sector, which used farmland as collateral.
This had ripple effects throughout the economy.
South Africa does not really have a strong leaning on agricultural productivity, but experts argue that the violation of private property rights in one sector will affect the entire economy.
The South African government is in a privileged position as the democratic role model not only in the SADC region but the rest of Africa and the world as a whole.
As such they must be seen to address past injustices without compromising the country’s economic future.
While the Thabo Mbeki government continues to insist land distribution is of crucial importance to black South Africans, there is no clear policy on how to handle the land issue.
It must come up with a clear policy framework and guidelines to handle the land redistribution exercise properly. The land ownership issue should not be used to divert public attention from the government’s failure to fulfil many of its promises, say observers. – CAJ News