Through you, Chair, hon Minister, considering the continuous withholding of full ownership of land from farmers who were cheated into long term lease agreements by your predecessors,
do you agree and share the same sentiments of your Deputy Minister, Skwatsha and predecessor Minister Kwinti, who blatantly said - at various occasions - that black South Africans cannot be trusted to own land, therefore, the state should hold their land and manage it on their behalf? If you do not agree with that, please, indicate your action plan to transfer all land held by government on behalf of the black South Africans to them individually. It is a shame that that has been said.
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, LAND REFORM AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT:
Thank you very much, hon member. Indeed, that is a new question in respect of the Rakgase matter. I think it is important for us as South Africans to reflect on our tenuous system as it pertains today. We have multiple tenure systems in South Africa, not one. You have got your freehold which is narrowly limited to title and we have the majority of the South Africans who happen to have been put on 30% of land, whose rights on land are not even recorded, it is actually under the Ministry of land as a custodian. These are the matters in South Africa that in my view we need to deal with when we look at what should be our tenure system. My view is that South Africa must accept that it would have a multiple tenure system, which will include title, collective ownership either on a lease hold, user fright and so on. Again, this is not peculiar to South
Africa. If you go to the United Kingdom, for instance, they have user fright rights on the Queen's land. That tenure system is able to ensure that people can invest on that land either commercially or otherwise. It is not new and I think we shouldn't be merry to force ourselves as country to say that the only tenure system that is available or should be available to South Africans is title.
I am saying so because leasehold - am repeating myself once again - is a tenure system that you can utilise for credit acquisition for investments of any sorts. The black South Africans in particular in this country have been on 99-year leasehold, particularly in the black townships you never owned land and you never owned that property but that never stopped them to actually invest and improve on those lands. It is not cheating, it might be your view that it must be titled but that is not the view of everybody and we must allow that debate in this country to finalise what our tenure policy should be. Thank you very much. [Applause.]