JOHANNESBURG South Africas ruling ANC party is planning radical change to the countrys land ownership laws that include a temporary freeze on sales of land to foreigners and an overhaul of the willing buyer/willing seller principle as a condition for governments purchase of private farmland re-allocation to blacks.According to farm community leaders, the changes proposed in the ANCs new green paper on land reform could result in radical policy changes, a development they fear could destabilise the sector.
“The land reform policy has, up until now, corresponded with the white paper on land reform of 1996 and the Constitution… why it suddenly needs to be changed is unclear, and we expect a radical shift in emphasis,” said Annelise Crosby from the legal department of farmers representative body, Agri SA.
It was not possible to get comment on the matter from Lindiwe Sisulu, who heads the ANCs social transformation committee tasked to review South Africas land policy that the ruling party says has failed to achieve its transformation targets.
Thousands of poor blacks are still waiting for the ANC government to deliver on its promise on coming to power in 1994 when it set itself an ambitious target of redistributing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014.
With four years before the delivery date the South African government has only acquired four percent of land from private owners for redistribution, and says it needs to accelerate the process amid growing unrest among the poor landless blacks.
South Africa just like its northern neighbour Zimbabwe inherited an unjust land tenure system from previous white-controlled governments under which the bulk of the best arable land was reserved for whites while blacks were forced to crowd on mostly arid and infertile soils.
But South Africa, which has one of Africas biggest farming sectors and its biggest economy, has repeatedly said it will not follow the example of Zimbabwe where President Robert Mugabe has seized most of the farms owned by that countrys about 4 500 white commercial farmers and gave them over to blacks.
Harare refused to pay for land, saying whites had in the first place stolen it from blacks.
The farm seizures are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe once a net food exporter into severe food shortages since 2001 after black peasant farmers resettled on former white farms failed to maintain production because the government failed to support them with financial resources, inputs and skills training.
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