Should SA communal lands be privatised?

In a private member's motion in Parliament, the Democratic Alliance proposed the privatisation of all communal land in South Africa, while a recent research report takes the opposite view, saying such a move could result in an entire social and economic system falling apart. The research, conducted in the Pondoland area north of Port St Johns by KwaZulu-Natal commercial farmer Valerie Payn, concludes that people in the area value the communal-lands allocation system because they are so poor that they cannot gain access to land in any other way.

Payn says that more effort should be made to improve the productivity of communal lands, instead of privatisation. The DA's spokesperson for rural development and land reform, Annette Steyn, told the Mail and Guardian Online she believes privatisation would generally benefit the inhabitants of communal areas, mainly because many people leave these areas to move to cities and give their land to relatives who do little with it. Steyn says communal-area land reform received only a one-line mention in the recent green paper on land reform, even though as many as 20-million South Africans live in communal areas.

Steyn believes the system allows for land to be manipulated as a way to control rural people, she heard about situations in which land rights were taken away when the chief was unhappy with the user. "Communal ownership also makes rural women vulnerable if land rights are alienated when their spouses pass away." Payn disagrees. "Our system works well," she says. "You are given the land that you need to grow the food you need, so there is always enough food. If you don't need it any more, it can be given [by the chief] to someone else who needs it. Ways should be found to improve the productive capacity of small-scale farmers and help them find markets. Payn told Mail and Guardian Online she believes, however, that people should be given more security of tenure and protection against unscrupulous and corrupt chiefs and politicians.

Read the full article on http://mg.co.za.