This department will also have to reconsider the legislative targets for the ensuing year, not only because of its very poor historical track record in promulgating legislation, but also because of how it has dealt with the Green Paper on rural development and land reform to date.
Kudala saphulukana nawo lo Mthetho uYilwayo. Wawuxoxelwa phandle, awungazange uxoxwe nokuxoxwa kula komiti yethu. [This Bill has long been out of our hands. It was debated elsewhere, as it has never ever been debated in our committee.]
We had to call the department and instruct them.
Nawe mama ubuyibiza ngokwakho ... [Kwahlekwa.]... [Even you, madam, had to invite them ... [Laughter.]] ... to come and talk about it in our committee ... ngoba ixoxwa phandle kuqala. [... because it was debated elsewhere first.]
The portfolio committee also heard that the department wants to implement the provisions of the Green Paper on Rural Development in a piecemeal fashion. The DA absolutely rejects the department's intention to draft relevant legislation on a piecemeal basis as and when it is ready. This would allow the conveniently selective implementation of the Green Paper at the ANC's discretion. [Interjections.]
In this regard, there are just too many instances of impeding legislation, which serves to pigeonhole communities and perpetuate disadvantages, especially for the rural poor. The Green Paper provisions on communal land and its precarious tenure have been placed on the back burner and are not receiving the scrutiny and public consultations they need.
Equally, the provisions of the Traditional Courts Bill will serve only to entrench and compound the lot of the rural poor, especially women who live in the former homelands or so-called Bantustans. It will perpetuate their existence of being drawers of water and hewers of wood. Its provisions will relegate certain communities to an extra-constitutional existence in a constitutional state. This simply cannot be countenanced, as it will eternally fulfil Verwoerd's detested vision of separateness.
The looming Constitutional Court deadline concerning the amendment of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Bill poses an enormous challenge to this department. If it is not properly considered and promulgated in its current form, it will also have catastrophic consequences for land use, planning and economic development.
I also want to say to the hon chairperson of this committee, it is mischievous to misinterpret the provisions of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act. It certainly does not provide for someone who has worked on a farm for 60 years to live there for only one year. You are misleading this House because that is not the provision of the legislation. [Interjections.]
This brings me back to the importance of geospatial and cadastral services to the rural poor. The aspiration to acquire land - and this is where I align myself with the chairman of the committee - and ownership thereof is not unique to South Africa. It is a universal aspiration of all people. In South Africa, though, we have a government that uses the issue injudiciously by using outdated landholding statistics for their own emotional and political gain, and to cover the ineptitude and poor performance of this department's land reform programme.
This financial year simply cannot be allowed to come to an end without the completed and comprehensive state land audit and a credible land register. Hon Minister, we are going to hold you to account for this.
The idea of the compilation of e-cadastre needs to be thoroughly interrogated and understood by all. No one should labour under the misconception that the integrity of conveyancing and the registration of title deeds can be short-circuited. If there is any relaxation of the registration and security of title, we will suffer the worst kind of unintended consequences, the knock-on effect of which will be to drive away potential investment which holds the key to economic growth and job creation in our country.
It is a cause for grave concern to the DA that there has been a dramatic decline in the registration of state subsidy housing, especially of those houses built on state land, communal land and land held in trusts, like the Ingonyama Trust Board. Even lease-related state housing schemes should provide owners or lessees with a minimum form of appropriate security of tenure. All these issues indicate that there is a surreptitious nationalisation of land that seeks to undermine the constitutional provision of the right to own property, movable and immovable.
This also deepens the dependency syndrome of the rural poor. If the government would just listen to the public presentations of people from this community, it would recognise ... ukuba abantu basezilalini barhalela ukusuka kule meko kavuk' ukhongozele baye kwimeko kavuk' uzenzele. Kodwa, siyababopha abantu bethu kuba sibenza bakhongozele okokoko. Ndinexhala lokuba le mithetho ndisandula ukuyichaza ngoku ... [Uwelewele.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[... that the people from the rural areas want to move away from the situation of receiving handouts to that of do-it-yourselves. However, we restrict our people because we force them to always receive handouts. I am concerned that the laws I have been referring to ... [Interjections.]]