WHITE FARMERS AND FOREIGNERS IN THE FIRING LINE OF THE GOVERNMENT’S FIRST SALVO OF RADICAL ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION

“WHEREAS there is a need to redistribute agricultural land more equally by race and class, raise agricultural output and food security and to advance social justice and political stability by obtaining agricultural land to support and promote productive employment and income to poor and efficient small scale farmers”

This is how the Bill starts! One could of course spend forever analyzing and debating all the assumptions set out above but that would be for another day. Let me rather take you forward and highlight some of the major components of the Bill.

1. Establishment of a Land Commission. As if we don’t have enough government departments and expenditure the government is going to create yet another department which will no doubt be staffed by an endless number of grossly overpaid ANC cadres. The purpose of the land commission is to administer the Act which will flow from this Bill. This includes the obligation to create a register of all agricultural land. Whether the commission will have the technical ability to administer such a register efficiently and accurately remains to be seen. It is equivalent to trying to recreate a significant portion of our existing Deeds Registry. A monumental task! Recent disastrous efforts by government to create less complicated registers in other sectors entitle one to be cynical. Some politically connected service provider is no doubt licking his chops!
2. Restrictions on Foreigners. Foreigners (who are defined as someone who is not a citizen; whose continued presence in South Africa is subject to a limitation as to time imposed by law; or not ordinarily resident in South Africa) will as of the date of this Bill becoming law, not be permitted to purchase agricultural land. They will only be allowed to enter into long leases in respect of the land. Long leases must be for a minimum period of 30 years or for the lifetime of the lessee with a maximum period of 50 years. Foreigners who already own land will not be obliged to dispose of the land but when they decide to do so they are obliged to first offer it for sale to the government.
3. Disclosure of present ownership. Every owner of agricultural land (foreigners and locals alike) will be required to submit a form to the land commission within 12 months from date of commencement of the law providing prescribed information relating to their land. Such information must include the race, gender and nationality of the owner; the size and use of the agricultural land and any real right registered against and licence allocated to the agricultural land holdings. Foreigners are politely excused from a racial interrogation! This is reserved for locals only.
4. Ceilings for agricultural land holdings. The government will set limits on how much agricultural land any one person may own. This will probably be done regionally. In setting the limit, the government should give consideration to amongst other factors land capability; capital requirements; expected household income; annual turnover and the relationship between product prices and price margins. Any land owned by anyone in excess of the ceiling set by the government will constitute “Redistribution Agricultural Land”. A better term would have been “distributable agricultural land”. Such land will be discussed in the next item. Before proceeding I think it is important to note that this portion of the legislation is probably the most provocative and “radical”. Whether it will be found to be Constitutional remains to be seen. At the end of the day one is driven to ask why it is necessary to set such a ceiling. The government already has the power to expropriate land for purposes of redistribution, when it wants to and limiting the power and privilege of a white person to own more than one farm or a farm larger in size than what the government deems to be reasonable, seems pointless and in fact somewhat vindictive. My biggest fear is that the government (as it is inclined to do) will get it wrong and set the ceilings incorrectly. Such an error will destroy our commercial farming industry and affect our ability to feed ourselves and export of produce.
5. Redistribution Agricultural Land. After the government prescribes the ceiling for agricultural land ownership and as discussed in the previous paragraph the excess land is described as Redistribution Agricultural Land. The owner of such land is then obliged to inform the commission of the identity of that land and thereafter obliged within periods set by the government to offer it for sale (at a price set by the owner) to black people. If no black person buys the land within a given period, the government must purchase the land. If the government and the owner cannot agree on price, then the government will use the Expropriation Act and its procedures to expropriate the land and resolve the matter of price. This is another radical portion of the legislation. The question which needs to be asked and answered is where on earth the government will find the money to buy all the “Redistribution Agricultural Land” in one go. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that our government intends to amend our Constitution and remove the obligation to pay compensation for expropriated land. There’s been much “talk” in the media by members of our government on this topic recently including a speech made by our president. Time will tell but one thing is clear, radical times lie ahead!

Milton Koumbatis
Director