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Changes need to be implemented to the so-called property clause in Section 25 of the Constitution and land should be redistributed in a manner that reflects the demographic of South Africa even if there is no restitution paid in the process.
These were the takeouts from yet another emotive and contentious day of public hearings into a possible review of section 25 of the Constitution.
The Parliamentary delegation of the joint constitutional review committee holding the hearings received a resounding response from residents who thronged the Adelaide Tambo Hall in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, on Wednesday – “section 25 needs to be changed and land redistribution needs to be implemented in our lifetime.”
From the first speaker to the last, the residents exuded an irrefutable sense of frustration and despair with their current reality: “We have laid claims for the redistribution of our forefathers’ land and the process has been dragging on for years here in Mpumalanga. The irony is that when a mining company applies for a mining permit for the same land in dispute, they get approval imminently,” said a resident, Mandlakayise Mthombeni.
An elderly woman, Sarah Mokoena, also supporting the review of section 25 of the Constitution.
“We have been displaced from our land, only to have people build or farm on top of the graves of our ancestors,” she said.
“We have been relocated to mountainous areas like baboons yet all we plead for is our land. We have hands and the mental capability to farm the land,” said Mokoena.
A major bone of contention raised by the Mpumalanga residents was the manner in which land-claim cases dragged on for years while mining companies were being allocated the same pieces of land without the red tape that landless people went through.
The residents also claimed that municipalities refused to provide them with basic services because they argued that they were residing on private land and that it was not their prerogative to provide services to private property.
Fikile Kunene, a traditional healer who supported the amendment, said her stance was motivated by the fact that she was unable to get medication because landowners did not allow her access to their land, “denying her access to the herbs and roots that she would otherwise use to heal dozens of sick community members”.
From the tone of their voices to the frustrated tears, it was clear that the residents had grown impatient with the current avenues of land redistribution, which include the willing buyer willing seller solution, and were imploring the government to “finally implement a solution that will deliver land to the landless quicker”.
Like anything that is untasted there were disagreements, particularly with regards to who the recipients of the expropriated land should be. On this topic, residents were divided across political lines.
ANC loyalists believed that the land should be “handed over to the custody of government, who in turn would distribute it to landless black South Africans”.
Those who supported the EFF were more of the view that the land should be given straight to the ownership of the landless so as to “bypass the possibility of corruption that could emanate from government officials being given the responsibility to distribute land”.
EFF leader Julius Malema and Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota, who almost came to blows last week at the Limpopo public hearing in Marble Hall, were present for the day’s proceedings. However, their antics were not what dominated the proceedings this time around.
The frustration and despair of the residents was the main attraction.
And personal pleas from the residents to specific members of Parliament in attendance particularly to Malema showed a loss of faith in the ruling party and a desire of “trying other solutions” as explained by one resident.
Mthombeni said he and other residents had exhausted efforts of getting ANC leadership in the province to assist them with land claims against “a prominent company that was monopolising land”. He asked the EFF leader to “please set up a committee that will get back to the people and not just leave us hanging”.
The decision to hold public hearings followed a mandate by the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces to ascertain whether a review of Section 25 of the Constitution and other clauses are necessary, to make it possible for the state to expropriate land in the public interest without compensation, and propose the necessary constitutional amendments where necessary.
The next public hearing would be in the North West province from July 17 to 19 followed by KwaZulu-Natal from July 18 to 21.
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