Land reform: what still needs to be done?

The lack of accurate data about who owns what land is seriously hampering the land reform process in South Africa, says Peter Setou of the non-profit Vumelana Advisory Fund.

- Peter Setou

Many South Africans believe that government is far behind schedule in reaching its threshold of redistributing at least 30% of land to black South Africans almost 30 years into the democratic dispensation. Industry analysts blame the absence of common measuring instruments and research methods for the lack of data on how much land has been transferred to black South Africans.

Between 2010 and 2017, the department of agriculture commissioned a land audit to provide information on private land ownership by race, nationality, and gender.

While the information produced was a good starting point, it raised more questions than answers, as the data had to be gathered from multiple sources and processed and analysed in different ways.

For example, at the time, the Deeds Office did not register land rights by race. In addition, it did not compel landowners to apply for subdivision and land-use change permits from the surveyor and municipal councils, respectively.

As a result, there were surveyed land parcels that had changed land-use but were still registered at the Deeds Office under their old land-use classifications.

LACK OF UNDERSTANDING