Hon Chairperson of the House, members of the House, fellow South Africans, good afternoon, as we debate here today, one reflects on the words of our father, uTata Nelson Mandela, who at the 10th Anniversary of Sowetan's Nation-Building Initiative in 1998, Madiba said, I quote:
Our nation building efforts must undo the effects of three centuries and more of colonialism and racism. Many years will be needed to achieve equitable
redistribution of wealth to which we aspire. But having made a good start, the challenge now is to increase the pace of delivery to further better the lives of people. We can face that challenge with confidence derived from the fact that by joining hands South Africans have overcome problems others thought would forever haunt us. As we destroyed apartheid so too can we defeat poverty and discrimination if we are united.
In a debate about the escalation of violent crimes in the country and government's responsibility to protect its citizen's lives and their property; one may ask themselves of the relevance of speaking about land redistribution and security of tenure.
The statistics on violent crimes are in the public domain. Every day we see the instability caused by crime. Our communities are ravaged by violence and people feel unsafe. It is a cause for great concern. The National Development Plan envisions that by 2030, we will have a society where all people will feel and will be safe. With that said, it would be an impossible task to think that we will achieve Outcome 3 of the National Development
Plan if we do not disaggregate the actual causes of crime in our country.
Chairperson, the seeds of the triple challenge which is poverty, unemployment and inequality could be traced back to the forcible dispossession of land and its mineral resources by colonialism.
In 1923 when the first ever Bill of Rights in South Africa was adopted by the ANC, we declared: "that the Bantu inhabitants of the Union have, as human beings, the indisputable right to a place of abode in this land of their fathers (and mothers)." And furthermore "that all Africans have, as the sons (and daughters) of this soil, the God-given right to unrestricted ownership of land in this, the land of their birth".
The promise of the Freedom Charter clearly states that the Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It! Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger. All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose.
In our Ready to Govern document, we said: Dispossession and denial of rights to land have resulted in the present unequal division of land and landlessness, which will require legislative intervention far beyond the mere repeal of apartheid land laws. Our policies must provide access to land both as a productive resource and to ensure that all our citizens have a secure place to live.
In our Reconstruction Development Programme document, we also said that the land reform has two aspects, which is redistribution of residential and productive land to those who need it but cannot afford it and restitution for those who lost land because of apartheid laws. The land redistribution programme will realise its objectives in various ways, including strengthening property rights of communities already occupying land, combining market and non-market mechanisms to provide land, and using vacant government land. We have categorically expressed our views of the need for security of tenure particularly on farms.
In our 54th National Conference resolution, we resolved that expropriation of land without compensation should be
among the key mechanisms available to government to give effect to land reform and redistribution.