SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa will next month begin the process of repossessing land from white farmers where it has been proved it was illegally acquired during the apartheid era, a senior government official said.
South Africa's chief land claims commissioner, Tozi Gwanya, told local media that the government had decided to begin large-scale repossessions of farmland because the willing-buyer- willing-seller model currently used to handle the country's land redistribution programme had failed to yield positive results.
How to return land to blacks dispossessed of their tribal lands by whites during the racist regime's lifespan has been one of the most contentious issues facing South Africans in the post-apartheid era.
To date the government has refrained from appropriation and has instead been locked in complex negotiations with individual farmers in an effort to come up with a compensation package deemed satisfactory by both parties.
However, according to Mr Gwanya, after years of effort a new approach would be taken as many white farmers wanted more money for their land than the government was prepared to pay.
Black ownership of land has increased from 13 per cent at the end of apartheid in 1994 to only about 16 per cent.
"There are in excess of 7,000 claims that have been outstanding," said Mr Gwanya, in reference to government efforts to redress land grabs in which members of the black majority lost ancestral holdings.
"We have been negotiating with some white farmers for two or three years, especially in four provinces - Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and KwaZulu Natal - and this has to stop.
"From March, we will begin expropriating land for which negotiations have gone on for that period or more. We cannot wait any longer," he said.
Mr Gwanya's revelation comes just days after President Thabo Mbeki indicated in his state-of-the-union address that the willing-buyer-willing-seller model was to be dispensed with.
The president's reference to the issue has prompted speculation among commentators about a likely alternative approach, with suggestions that something akin to a Mugabe-style land repossession programme might be on the cards.
Since 2000, cronies of Zimbabwe's president have actively repossessed the majority of the 4,000 white-owned farms in the country and no compensation has ever been made available to the dispossessed.
But the lands claim commissioner maintained that South Africa's new approach would not mirror that of its southern Africa neighbour. Instead, farmers would be given the level of financial remuneration for their former plots that the government deemed appropriate.
Agricultural groups across the country have called on the government to rethink its decision.
"It is in everyone's interest that land claims be completed as soon as possible, but it needs to take place in a fair manner," said Annelize Crosby, land affairs adviser at Agri South Africa, the biggest organisation representing white farmers.
"You cannot go around taking land left, right and centre. It would be wrong to penalise farmers because they want fair prices for their properties," she said.