LAND and PROPERTY posted on 16 August 2025

What?

Government must transfer the title deeds of all RDP houses to their occupiers to make them owners with no restrictions.

Government must transfer the title deeds of all redistributed land to the individual recipients to make them owners with no restrictions.

Government must give title to all farmers on communal land for their homesteads plus at least 5 hectares of land.

In all these cases, title must be given jointly to husband and wife or both partners as the case may be.

Government must sell all its unused land (such as old military bases, post office and railways properties and so forth) or put in utilities and give title of serviced sites for people to build their own low-cost homes where the land is suitable situated.

Why?

1) Firstly, it is simply justice if land or a home is morally belonging to a person, they must hold the title so that they legally own it too.

2) It will be the biggest transfer of wealth to millions of South Africans ever. It is estimated that government still holds hundreds of thousands (up to a million) title deeds for RDP houses alone. At an estimated value of R300 000 (replacement cost R400 000 to R800 000) this alone is a transfer of wealth to poor South Africans of at least R300 billion.

3) Farmers cannot be expected to be successful without being able to raise capital on their land to buy equipment, seed and fertiliser.

4) Government does not have enough money to supply working capital to all farmers who do not own their land and if they did, the possibilities for favouritism and corruption is huge – whereas a farmer borrowing for a bank against the collateral of his own land is his / her risk alone. It also does not come out of our limited fiscus (tax money budgeted by government).

5) Farmers cannot be expected to nurture the land and make it better each generation, unless they own it for their children.

6) Occupants of “RDP” houses cannot be expected to maintain and even upgrade them at their own expense if they do not own the house and cannot pass it on to their children.

7) Agriculture is an area where we have huge untapped potential for economic growth (particularly in the good rainfall areas of KZN and the Eastern Cape) and this will create many jobs, helping rural poverty and thus the country as a whole.

8) Having communally owned land brought into full production will go a long way to lower the costs of food in these areas (which typically have to import food from the towns).

9) As soon as farmers in communally owned areas have title deeds to their piece of land, they will be able to raise money for equipment, seed and fertiliser and they will produce far more. The effect on rural poverty will be enormous. The cost of food production depends on a) cost rent of land (or mortgage payment), b) cost of labour, c) cost of equipment, seed, fertiliser etc). As communal land will be free and unmortgaged and the farmer is largely doing his /her own labour - s/he will have a competitive advantage.

10) Having never been deep ploughed or had fungicides and herbicides on them much of the communal lands should have good productive soils.

11) The cost of the real estate envisaged in this hand over of title deeds has been paid long ago. It will not add any financial burden to the state to give the title deeds to the people who “own” it.

12) The fear that people receiving title deeds will simply sell their assets for money is patriarchal (and mostly untrue). They are adults and must be allowed to make their own decisions based on their own reality. After all, who is government to say that that is the wrong decision for them? Many people who made land claims were happy to accept a monetary settlement instead, so what is different if people receive the land and then later decide to sell it? In any event, it is not bad for the country if people do sell their land. Anyone buying it will need to make it productive to pay for the cost of the land – so the productivity will remain or increase. The people selling the land will have money to spend – which is good for the economy and is clearly something that they need in their own lived reality.

13) Selling of unused or under - utilised government properties will raise some money to help with the national debt and the debts of SOE’s.

How?

1) Records should exist of all land redistributed and RDP houses, most have existing title deeds currently held by government. It is a technical exercise to hand over the titles.

2) Communal land is more complex, and it will take time, but with satellite imaging and GPS location of boundaries, it will be possible and relatively easy to delineate each and every homestead.  

3) Negotiating farmland to accompany each homestead will need to be done between adjacent subsistence farmers and their tribal authorities.

Why not?

Communal land is communally owned and has historically been allocated by the tribal authority to each member of the community. Tribal authorities will resist the idea of transferring title to individual community members.

This is true, and they have resisted it by convincing the people that this is actually a way of taking the land away from the community / tribe. The first time that individuals in a community get their title to the land and homestead they built on it  – the lie of that assertion will become clear. Recent attempts by many tribal authorities to levy rentals on the land allocated to individuals makes it clear that they see the land as belonging to the leadership and not the people. This insecurity over that land that belongs to individual people by birthright must be solved.

Referendum

I would vote that:

1) Title deeds to all RDP houses be given to the people for whom the house was built. Yes/No

2) Title deeds to all redistributed land bought by government in the past should be given to the people who made the successful land claim. Yes/ No

3)  Title deeds to homesteads of all people living in communally owned areas be created and given to them. Yes/No

4) Title deeds to a piece of previously community owned farmland be included with each homestead. Yes/No