Hon Deputy Speaker, hon Deputy President, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, hon members, ladies and gentlemen ...
... ons gaan die olifant stukkie vir stukkie eet. Die rede daarvoor is dat elkeen sy stukkie moet kry. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[... we are going to eat the elephant piece by piece, the reason being that everyone should get a piece.]
Hon Swathe, kukho intetho esiXhoseni ethi thenga inyaniso ungathengisi ngayo. [Buy the truth, and sell it not.]
Our Constitution sets out the legal basis for land reform, particularly in the Bill of Rights. Section 25 puts a patent obligation on the state to carry out land and related reforms, and grant specific rights to victims of past discrimination. It further allows for expropriation of property for a public purpose or in the public interest, subject to just and equitable compensation, and states explicitly that the public interest includes the nation's commitment to land reform, and to reforms to bring about equitable access to all South Africans to South Africa's natural resources. This is the Constitution which the ANC seeks to defend.
The policy framework for land reform was originally set out in the 1997 White Paper on South African Land Policy. It identified three broad categories of the programmes of land reform, namely, land restitution, which provides relief for victims of forced dispossession; landholding, a discretionary programme to redress the racial imbalances in landholding; and tenure reform, intended to secure and extend the tenure rights of the victims of past discriminatory practices.
Through the Green Paper on Land Reform published by hon Minister Nkwinti in 2011, and subsequent policy development processes, land development support has been introduced as a distinct programme to complement the other three components of the programme of land reform.
The House will probably know that government has delivered 30% of government targets for land redistribution. It is widely acknowledged within and outside government that the pace of land redistribution has been slow. Among the many contributing factors has been the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach to the acquisition of land.
I have looked at the ANC policy documents as the ruling party, and the concept of willing-buyer, willing-seller was entirely absent from the Freedom Charter, which advocated for the distribution of land among those who worked on it, along the lines of land-to-the-tiller model. I have also looked at the ANC's "Ready to Govern" policy statement of 1992, and the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach was also entirely absent. It appears that the willing-buyer, willing-seller concept crept into the discourse on land reform gradually between 1993 and 1996, such that when the White Paper on South African Land Policy was adopted, it had become the cornerstone of the policy. Hence we speak of the market-based land reform.
I would strongly argue that the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach was not dictated by our Constitution. The Constitution makes explicit provision for expropriation for the purpose of land reform and for compensation at below market prices. Section 25(3) of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution provides that the amount of the compensation and the time and manner of payment must be just and equitable, reflecting an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of those affected, having regard to all relevant circumstances, including the current use of the property; the history of the acquisition and use of the property; the market value of the property; the extent of direct state investment and subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the property; and the purpose of the expropriation.
Within these policy constraints, the ANC-led government managed to ensure land redistribution. As the ANC, we have already said that this is not the pace that we would have liked. We need to accelerate transformation of property and power relations in the countryside.
Notwithstanding the challenges of land redistribution, we celebrate the achievements of this government. Over 7 million hectares of land has been redistributed to the communities through the programme of land reform. In addition to that, the recapitalisation and land reform programme is assisting in improving productivity of land reform farms. We congratulate the hon Minister Nkwinti on these achievements.
The Property Valuation Bill before this august House will go a long way to assist government to curb the challenges of escalating land prices and related purchases of land at prices above the market value, and delays in purchase price negotiations. [Interjections.] The greatest intervention this Bill proposes is in the area of valuations. Over the past 20 years, our valuations of properties for land reform were not linked to section 25(3) of the Constitution in its totality. They singled out 25(3)(c), which addresses the market value.
Therefore, the Bill defines value for purposes of land reform to mean the value of the land properly identified for purposes of land reform, which must reflect an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of those affected by the acquisition, having regard to all the relevant circumstances, including the provision of section 25(3) of the Constitution.
South Africans should understand that there are competing versions of land reform. The programme has had to navigate through a mix of interests among those who wish to ensure that land reform in general, and land redistribution in particular, is left to the markets. We can limit the role of the state to the processing of applications and releasing of funds or signing of leases. We need a more proactive state to intervene and correct the market imperfections and policy constraints.
The ANC supports the Bill. [Time expired.] [Applause.]