Land Reform Can Be Positive

Roelf Meyer, former minister of defence, constitutional affairs and communication, and now head of the In Transformation initiative, told Gerhard Uys that land reform could be a positive process if all stakeholders worked together.

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There seems to be a certain urgency with regard to land reform and expropriation at the moment. Is this really the case?

There isn’t necessarily an urgency with regard to land reform at the moment, but in left-wing ranks false claims have been made about expropriation of land, which has led to a lot of attention being given to the subject in the media.

We need to define land reform and clarify why we need it. To my mind, land can mean something only if it has commercial value and one can use it as security. Immediately after 1994, the cutoff date for land reform claims was set at 1913. The mandate was clear, but the problem is that it was not implemented. This lack of implementation is the biggest failure of the current government. We need to change the historic paradigm that says farmland in South Africa belongs to white people. Transformation is not simply about transferring that land to a new societal grouping.

What is required is that we look at land in a way that would benefit the majority of South Africans. We should have continued with the land reform dialogue after 1994. Therefore, a conversation must now be started in which practical and progressive solutions can be found and implemented to enable successful land and agricultural reform.

Discussions have mostly been about rural land reform or expropriation, but you’ve mentioned that city dwellers must be included. Can you elaborate?