Govt should 'take people out of Bantustans' by expropriating land

The chairperson of parliament's land reform committee wants people out of the over-crowded former "Bantustans" and says the government must make use of its right to expropriate land to do this, iafrica.com reports. Stone Sizane said after a briefing by the land reform department in Parliament that the government was not making sufficient use of its right to expropriate land.

"South Africans living in greater South Africa should not be over-crowded in Bantustans," said Sizane. "Let's not blame the barrenness of the land, the over-grazing and the soil erosion... let's take people out of Bantustans." Scrapped in 1994, Bantustans were largely rural areas set aside by the apartheid government for occupation by blacks, loosely based on tribal identity.

According to iafrica.com Sizane said that the willing seller, willing buyer model of land reform was a market-driven process. "Let's stop flogging this willing seller, willing buyer horse and deal with instruments that will help us redistribute land." He added that people should be able to settle everywhere in the country. The Constitution gave the state the instrument of expropriation. If there was a land dispute, the government should "go to court and let the judges adjudicate," Sizane said.

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