South Africa, seeking ways to speed up the redistribution of land, said on Tuesday its constitution does not specify that the sale of land must be voluntary and at market prices.
"The willing-buyer, willing seller approach is not something provided in the constitution," Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told parliament during a regular question-and-answer session with legislators.
Land is a sensitive issue in South Africa where the white minority still owns the most of the agricultural land more than a decade after the end of apartheid.
The government has been careful to distance itself from the approach taken in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where often violent seizures of white-owned farms have been blamed for a collapse in agriculture and a deepening political crisis.
But frustration is growing about by the slow pace of putting land into black hands, prompting a review of the state's policy of "willing-buyer, willing-seller", which sees it offering market-related prices to farmers willing to sell land identified for redistribution.
Mlambo-Ngcuka said the government was considering various proposals from a recent land summit such as the expropriation of land and scrapping restrictions on sub-dividing land.
"Government will do everything within its power to avoid a situation where people become so desperate about the land situation that they resort to desperate means," she said.
Dirk du Toit, the deputy minister of land affairs, told parliament's land committee the constitution also did not specify that the state should offer market prices for redistributed land.
"I think it is unconstitutional to use market value for these transactions," he said, referring to instances where farmers demand high prices despite the land not being used for productive farming.
The constitution provided for the expropriation of land "with just and equitable compensation" and not market-related prices, he said.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.