Traditional leaders call for land referendum to fast-track restitution

Traditional leaders are calling for a referendum to facilitate the process of bringing back the land to its original owners.

Chief Mathupa Mokoena, president of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa), said yesterday he was reliably informed that there were more than 75 land claims that have not yet been processed.

“Now it is clear that for those land claims to be completed, it will take another 30 years, and being as it may, even more than 30 years,” he said.

“Parliament tried to expedite this process, but still beneficiaries are not getting their land back. The signing of the Land Expropriation Act by President Cyril Ramaphosa is not allowing our people to get their land back.

“Based on these facts, Contralesa is calling for a referendum, which will allow people to decide how to deal with the land question once and for all.

“Parliament must start the process that will allow the people of our country to vote on this matter. The president must immediately, after the parliamentary process, set up a date for the referendum to take place,” said Mokoena.

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Failed legislations

“Since 1994, many legislations have been passed with the aim of expediting the land redistribution and land restoration. Unfortunately, all these legislations did not assist,” Mokoena explained.

“If you look at Section 25 that parliament tried to pass so that it assists people to get their land back, it’s also not assisting us because all the conditions that are there in Section 29, even in the Land Expropriation Act that was signed by the president, are still there and that is not enabling those who are forcefully removed from their land to automatically get their land back. All processes that were there in the first legislation that was passed, they are still in place.”

He said all the laws give powers to the current owner of the land to determine the price that they can be paid before the land can be released.

Mokoena said many people are frustrated, while others died waiting to get their land back due to the slow pace in which the government has been progressing.

Referendum is the ‘only solution’

When clarifying on the issue of a referendum, it would speed up the process of returning the land to the original owners as once the people voted, the government must simply implement the decision.

“Let’s hear the voice of those people. Here, just in contrast, we are calling for that. And that’s the only solution now,” he said.

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“But we are not going to resolve the question of land in this country. And the only solution now is through the referendum. That’s the reason why we’re calling for it and we hope someone will listen and do it.

“I have already directed my office to write a letter to parliament that they start the process of facilitating how this referendum will take place and after parliament has done all the logistics, they will then send it to the president to set up a date for this referendum to take place.”

When answering questions in parliament last week, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso said 71 226 claims were investigated, while only 4 757 were rejected “due to various reasons, including that some of the land was seized before June 1913, while some claims were submitted after the 1998 deadline”.

International backlash

South Africa’s recently promulgated land law has been widely criticised here at home and internationally.

The law allows the state to take the ownership of land without compensating the owner.

Soon after the law was passed, US President Donald Trump withdrew financial support to South Africa’s health care programmes.

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