Foreign land ownership under scrutiny

Abstract

Welcome to the second issue of Umhlaba Wethu, the quarterly update on land and agrarian reform in South Africa from the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, based at the University of the Western Cape. Recent months have seen considerable shifts in the debate around land reform in South Africa, although the pace of reform remains a major concern. In October, the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Agriculture and Land Affairs held public hearings on the pace of land reform. Submissions from a wide range of stakeholders highlighted the slow progress in areas such as redistribution and tenure reform, and the enormous challenge posed by rural restitution claims. Calls were made for a substantial increase in the budget available for land reform and for government to use its legal powers of expropriation. Read PLAAS’s submission, which received widespread media attention, at www.uwc.ac.za/plaas and click through to other electronic documents from the hearings.