Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development, Mzwanele Nyhontso has expressed deep concern as majority of beneficiaries of the land restitution programme by the government are opting for money, instead of getting the land back.
Nyhontso, a veteran politician who is also president of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) was elected by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July as a Cabinet minister spearheading the land reform and rural development in the Government of National Unity.
In July, shortly after Nyhontso’s appointment, IOL reported that in a country where land ownership remains largely in the hands of minority groups, the newly appointed minister of land reform and rural development had identified the land reform programme and ensuring access to land as his key priorities when he assumes his influential role in Cabinet.
In an interview with Cape Times newspaper at the time, Nyhontso said: “The people are landless. The people are homeless. People do not have jobs”.
This week, in an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, Nyhontso said his 100 days in office have been “interesting” and he has led to settling of some of the land claims by previously disposed communities.
“We have started delivering, we have started issuing title deeds to our people, with hectares of land. We started in Johannesburg, we delivered land in one CPA (communal property association) including the title deeds. We went to North West and we did the same thing, we delivered land including the support. In KZN we delivered lots of title deeds. We have been doing it and seemingly people are happy out there,” Nyhontso told the news channel.
“Let me also raise what I have experienced in these 100 days. It is what I call a concern and a worry … people choose money over land. Especially people in Eastern Cape. That is worrying. Only in Eastern Cape, the department has committed R8 billion to settle claims. My worry is that once you take money money, you will spend money and within a month you will have no money and no land.”
Nyhontso said he has been criss-crossing the whole of South Africa, across all provinces and urging beneficiaries to choose land during the restitution process.
“Choosing land also goes with what we call settlement support which is also money, which means you can choose land and then have money. We want to educate our people about this, it is a concern that I have seen in these 100 days (that I have been) in office, that people prefer money,” he said.
In some instances, Nyhontso said families are given the land and the financial support but they rent out the farms.
“Once they get the farms, they utilise the money that they were given and end up renting out those farms, and the farms end up not working at all. It is also worrying because it feeds to the narrative that black people cannot farm, which is not true. This means if we allocate a farm to a person, we are making a follow up, making sure that the farm remains commercial, that farm remains productive,” he said.
Government is mooting employing individuals who will manage the allocated land “so that this farm remains a farm”, to assist the new owners.
The minister said last week, 36 title deeds were handed over to beneficiaries in Newcastle, KwaZulu Natal. That package is around 20,000 hectares of land.
In some instances, Nyhontso said government has established that the farms are returning to the hands of the previous owners “which were white people who sold the farms to us”.
Previously, IOL reported that the most recent Land Audit Report, commissioned by the rural development and land reform department in 2018, showed that whites owned the majority of land at 72%, followed by coloured people at 15%, Indians at 5% and Africans at 4% in South Africa.
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