Land reform in South Africa : the issues and challenges - ideology, politics and post-settlement support services

Abstract

This thesis is about land reforms in South Africa. In particular, the study investigates the issues and challenges facing the land reform programme in South Africa. The research assesses the ideological assumptions underlying the current approach to land redistribution, and the free-market approach to land reform, which is based on the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle. The Constitution, Section 25 provides for a far-reaching land reform programme. Section 25(5) states, “The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis.” Section 25(6) states, “A person or community whose tenure of land is legally insecure as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices, is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to tenure, which is legally secure or to comparable redress”. Section 25(7) states, “A person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress”. This thesis discusses the policy-making process and how certain policies (neo-liberal economic policies) were favoured. The research study adopts a qualitative approach to research and uses a documentary analysis approach to research to analyse and describe the land reform process and programmes. The method shows that land reform has been slow and inefficient, because the current approach, market-based land reform, has led to inflation of prices on the market. Given that land reform has not delivered on the desired development outcomes, I use international experiences as a comparison to understand how other countries carried out their land reform processes. The document-data triangulation technique employed in the data analysis reveals that although the market-led approach has been supported on economic terms, accompanied with the right legislations, programmes and support services, the major issues and challenges facing land reform go beyond legislations, programmes and delivery methods, to three key categorical areas, namely: Ideology, Politics and Post-settlement support services. The study finds that the unresolved themes in these three areas have proved to be the major obstacles, impacting on the pace and performance of land reform.