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Johannesburg - Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Joe Phaahla said on Wednesday farmers had "absolutely nothing to fear" about a proposal to declare agricultural land a national asset.
However, he said it "can't be morally correct" that some farmers hold unused agricultural land when there is a "hunger" for land and land reform in South Africa.
Speaking to Fin24.com after meeting with parliament's public accounts committee - where the department came under fire for its fifth consecutive qualified audit - Phaahla said the proposal was nothing more than an invitation to debate the matter.
He said land reform needed to be addressed urgently, and complete reliance could not be placed on the fiscus to achieve this.
"It [the proposal to declare all agricultural land a national asset] is not policy. It is not law. We are saying let's debate it. We will be transparent and follow all the necessary parliamentary processes. Nothing is going to be done illegally or unconstitutionally," Phaahla said.
He expects the Green Paper on the issue to be made public by the end of April.
The controversy surrounding the proposal centres on Section 25 of the constitution, which safeguards the right to own property. It also protects individual rights for fair compensation for expropriated land, while it compels government to ensure there is redress when it comes to land reform and redistribution.
Phaahla said government has done well in enforcing the first two categories, but not so well when it comes to redress.
"We can't ignore the fact that this is a huge problem. What happens if I am holding hundreds of thousands of hectares of land and I am living in America, not using the land and being protected by the right to own it?" he asked. "We must balance this with other rights."
Phaahla dismissed suggestions the proposal was a political ploy to detract from government's failure to manage the land reform process. The department does not have a complete asset register recording what land it inherited in 1994, or what land it has acquired since then.
It was also given only a quarter of the budget it asked treasury for this year, of which it has to use 25% to resuscitate farms distributed previously.
The department's director general Thozi Gwanya did not have an estimate of how much unused agricultural land exists, but said: "It is a moral question - we are calling for dialogue. We are saying to farmers we need to come up with a model.
"We must not be afraid to discuss any clause of the constitution; we are a democracy and we have to debate these issues until we resolve them. I do not know what farmers are worried about."
- Fin24.com
