Pieces of land

Pieces of land

News:

1. South Africa puts the contentious legislative proposals on land redistribution for debate.

Important facts:

2. Background:

The natives of the country were dispossessed of their land holdings during colonial period.

• Land ownership pattern in South Africa remains skewed against the black majority, even 24 years after the end of apartheid.
• The present growth rate of the country is poor and the unemployment rate is as high as 25%.
• On feb. 2018, National Assembly decided to cater to the constitutional principle of land expropriation without compensation.

3. Contentions associated with the amendment bill:

• It aims to make land expropriation provisions more explicit.
• The idea of expropriation without compensation is not welcomed by the land owners.
• It may give negative signal to investment sector resulting into job losses, de-industrialisation.

4. Challenge before South Africa:

To abide by the constitutional principle of expropriation without compensation and not undermining right to private property.

To make the land reform that is sustainable and acceptable to all.

It must strike a balance that it neither harms the agriculture nor the economy.

5. Lesson for South Africa:

• Zimbabwean experience tells that expropriation without compensation is a catastrophically bad idea.
• There it led to the violent seizures of farmlands in 1990s.
• In India, faulty land reform process gave birth to militant naxal groups which is still one of the biggest challenge to it’s internal security.

6. Way forward:

• It can shred off the impatient approach for transformation, and avoid strict adherence to the constitutional ideals to accommodate practical reality.
• South Africa can look setting a Compensation Committee under The Land Acquisition Act to define a reasonable criteria for compensations.
• Thus, the compensation be given only to the eligible land holders.
• This will not only rebalance the economic drift but also help in releasing social tension.