Johannesburg - The African National Congress will change the
constitution if it proves to be a hindrance to land reform, Minister of Rural
Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti said, according to a Beeld newspaper
report.
"The constitution has to help the community to advance.
If advancement gets stalled then the constitution has to be changed,"
Nkwinti reportedly told a parliamentary portfolio committee debate on Tuesday.
While emphasising that the debate was purely exploratory,
Nkwinti said discussions around land reform and restitution needed to be
re-opened.
He said the focus of government policy after 1994 was on
reconciliation rather than equality and fixing the wrongs of the apartheid era.
This was the correct policy but government was dealing with
a ticking time bomb if these wrongs were not set right.
"If necessary we will alter the constitution to reach
our goals," he said.