S.Africa rules out new land claims

[Ebusitanus]

...For now....

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/new...D-20050718.XML

By Peter Apps
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africa is ruling out new land claims from people who missed a 1998 deadline but is willing to look at revising its land reform policy, the agriculture minister said on Monday.
South Africa's land claims programme aims to return land taken under colonial or apartheid laws after 1913 to it original owners, but Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza said no claims would be accepted given the 1998 deadline.
Some groups had called for the claims process to be re-opened, which was worrying farmers.
"We are not going to allow any new claims," she said at a news conference in the capital Pretoria. "It's the instability, both economically and socially."
Predominantly-white farming groups in particular said they were worried about new claims, fearing a Zimbabwe-style process in which land might be seized and investment became impossible because of doubts over long-term security of ownership.
"Let's say you say people who missed the deadline can re-apply," said Didiza. "If I were an investor. What would I think? I would be very cautious and wait and see and so the issue of unemployment that we are all very worried about would not be addressed."
Of around 68,000 claims lodged by December 1998, some 62,127 had been addressed and resolved by the Department of Land Affairs, she said. In some cases, the claimants had moved onto the land -- bought from its current owners at market prices -- but in three quarters of cases the claimants had simply sought financial compensation.
NOT ENOUGH?
"All of us thought that people would want land," she said. "But it did not turn out that way."
In total, around one million hectares had been transferred into black hands, she said, with another three million hectares transferred under other schemes, mainly on the basis of a willing buyer and a willing seller.
The government was willing to discuss revising its current willing-seller, willing-buyer approach, but workable alternatives had to be proposed before any steps were considered.
Around another 16 million hectares must be transferred if the government is to reach its target of 30 percent of land in black ownership by 2015.
"We are all very aware of the call 'not enough'," Didiza said. Some groups such as the South African Communist Party have called for the government to end its reliance on the willing-buyer, willing-seller system to move faster.
Some white farmers were already offering equipment and skills to their new black neighbours, she said, but emerging farmers also needed banking and insurance. Pilot micro-credit schemes would help with that.
Current land reform schemes were raising land prices as sellers knew the government ultimately had to buy. Some had also accused foreign buyers of driving up land prices, she added.
At a major strategy meeting earlier in the month, members of the ruling African National Congress called on the government to impose a moratorium on foreign land ownership.
Didiza said an audit on land ownership would be completed in the coming weeks, and the government would then present its position