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Kennedy Mavhumashava, [email protected]

A 2022 World Bank report, “Inequality in Southern Africa: An Assessment of the Southern African Customs Union,” named South Africa as the world’s most unequal nation.

Race, colonialism, apartheid, joblessness, wage inequality, poor education and lack of access to productive farmland rank high among the factors making the inequality high and stagnant in that country 28 years after majority rule.

Inequality in per capita consumption was about 50 percent higher than the average for upper-middle-income countries, according to the document.

“The country has made little progress in reducing inequality in recent years. The main sources of inequality are inequality of opportunity and disparities in factor markets, with the legacy of apartheid playing a major role and access to jobs and land being severely constrained and uneven,” it added.

A land audit report that was released in 2017 indicates that Whites, who constitute seven percent of the country’s population, own 26 663 144 hectares (ha) or 72 percent of the total 37 031 283 ha farm and agricultural holdings by individual landowners in that country. Coloureds are second at 5 371 383 ha or 15%, followed by Indians at 2 031 790 ha or 5 percent and Blacks, who make up 81 percent of the population at 1 314 873 ha or four percent.

The study further revealed that the largest size of farms and agricultural holdings in South Africa is owned by White individuals at 11 498 449 ha or 77 percent in the Northern Cape Province and that nowhere in the country is the share of whites less that than 53 percent. The largest size owned by Africans is 270 423 ha or 17 percent in KwaZulu-Natal; with the largest size for Indians being 746 820 ha or five percent in Northern Cape; and Coloureds with the largest size at 2 222 206 ha or 15 percent in Northern Cape.

Professor Mandivamba Rukuni, a land policy expert who advised South Africa’s government between 2016 and 2019, said the magnitude of land ownership imbalances in that country demands a solution.
“They have no choice, but it is not going to be easy,” he told Chronicle.

“Soon after they achieved independence, you would hardly find any South African who would say they want to go the Zimbabwe route (of compulsory land acquisition with no compensation) but when I was asked to advise the government on land reform from 2016 the situation was beginning to look like a few people were beginning to talk radical.”

To expedite greater equality in land ownership in his country, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa assented to the Expropriation Bill on January 23. The piece of legislation, a product of five years of public and parliamentary scrutiny, empowers the state to acquire land if such action is deemed to be in the public interest.

Large-scale Black land dispossession in South Africa started in earnest after the enactment of the Natives Land Act in 1913. The law allowed the White regime of the day to forcibly remove Blacks from their ancestral lands and limited ownership of the factor of production by indigenous people to seven percent and later 13 percent through the 1936 Native Trust and Land Act.

“The Act restricted black people from buying or occupying land,” the government says.
“The apartheid government began the mass relocation of black people to poor homelands and to poorly planned and serviced townships. No longer able to provide for themselves and their families, people were forced to look for work far away from their homes. This marked the beginning of socio-economic challenges the country is facing today such as landlessness, poverty and inequality.”

The alienation worsened during apartheid from 1948 to the early 1990s. Blacks were forced to live in what were called Bantustans — 10 of them — where they were denied the right to freely own and use land.

South Africa’s pre and post-independence land ownership imbalance is comparable to Zimbabwe’s at both stages of its history.

At independence in 1980, about 5 000 Whites owned 15,5 million ha of the most fertile lands in Zimbabwe. A willing-buyer-willing-seller resettlement model that was to be used in the first 10 years of majority rule in terms of the Lancaster House Agreement failed to meet demand for the resource among Blacks. Also, the quality of land Whites were willing to put up for sale was poor, according to Zimbabweland.

A land donor conference that the government hosted in Harare in 1998 to raise money to pay for acquired land did not raise adequate resources for the programme. Two years later the revolutionary, fast-track land reform and redistribution programme started resulting in more than 380 000 Blacks being resettled on about 12 million ha of land that used to be held by 4 000 Whites.

South Africa’s Expropriation Act has triggered much debate in that country and abroad with the landed opposing it on one hand, and the landless backing it on the other.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), the country’s second biggest party after President Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) and member of the 11-party governing coalition, released a statement on January 25 declaring a dispute over his signing of the bill.

Mr John Steenhuisen, leader of the White-dominated DA and also the Minister of Agriculture, said his party objected to the law “in the strongest terms.”

On Sunday, US President, Mr Donald Trump claimed, that “certain classes of people” in South Africa were being treated “very badly.” Because of that, he threatened to cut off US funding for South Africa.

“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” he alleged said in a Truth Social post.

“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
Responding, President Ramaphosa expressed unhappiness at Mr Trump’s attempt to involve himself in South Africa’s domestic affairs. His country, he added, has capacity to address its challenges in terms of its laws without external assistance.

South Africa and the US enjoy strong economic ties at various levels. South Africa is the US’s largest trading partner on the continent with about $20 billion in two-way trade between them. About 600 American companies are active in South Africa. It, too, is one of the 32 sub-Saharan African nations which benefit under the US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. The initiative allows duty-free access for about 6 700 products to the US market.

While their trade and investment relationship is strong, the US does not give much by way of aid to South Africa. It received $453 million in US support through the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief last year with $439 million earmarked for the programme this year. A US funding halt, reports say, could affect about 5,9 million South Africans who are on anti-retroviral treatment.

Dr Gorden Moyo, director of the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe said South Africa might not want to risk US sanctions by adopting a radical approach to its land reform.
“It is important that the land question is answered,” he said.

“(However), there is a need for internal dialogue which I think South Africa is not having. I am aware of the frustration of the landless. They want quick answers but the government must engage labour, farmers and other stakeholders. In satisfying the demand for land there must be order.”
Mr Trump, Dr Moyo added, must encourage dialogue as well.

Zimbabwe’s revolutionary land reform programme attracted Western sanctions which caused a wide range of adverse impacts on the economy. Foreign direct investment dried up, credit lines were cut off and the number of locals considered poor rose from 54,2 percent to 60,7 percent following the imposition of the punitive measures.

Donald Trump

A government study carried out in 2019 established that the economy lost up to $42 billion in potential revenue due to the punitive measures.

Prof Rukuni, also an agricultural economics lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, urged the ANC to reform its land ownership system in line with a number of commitments it has made over the past 31 years of majority rule including a resolution for compulsory acquisition which the party adopted at its 2017 national conference which he attended.

As the country forges ahead, he added, it is also important for it to note that “Zimbabwe did not end up implementing compulsory land acquisition without compensation because that was premeditated. The situation gets you there. Zimbabwe had no choice. I told them that as long as the economy has not progressed to mass-lift the majority out of challenges, you will end up there.”