PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma recently expressed his disappointment about the lack of success of the government's land restitution and land reform programmes, saying that, "among other things, this is a result of institutional weaknesses in overall land management, policy and legislation".

In fact, the major failing has been the incompetence and indifference of public servants - they just don't seem to care.

The Port Elizabeth Land Restitution Initiative, however, has had reasonable success, despite the negligence of the various state institutions charged with delivering on the state's promise to restore land to the victims of forced removals under apartheid.

Zuma could make the task so much easier if he called the Land Claims Commission, and particularly the regional commissioner, Linda Faleni, the Eastern Cape housing department and the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality to order. This would ensure the processes we have taken up in partnership with the government, to ensure the restoration of land in Port Elizabeth, will finally be brought to conclusion.

The process in Port Elizabeth is one of the few models of relative success in land restitution in SA. This was achieved by concerted community action since 1993, despite considerable neglect by the government institutions established to deal with this.

Despite the frustrations, the Port Elizabeth Land and Community Restoration Association (Pelcra) has made significant strides and is achieving not only what the Land Restitution Act set out to do, but has impacted on other urban development imperatives of our developmental state.

Despite low claim values and a modest settlement of R42m for 1200 urban land claims, the project has returned land to some of the claimants and has contributed to changing the previously segregated spatial development pattern in Port Elizabeth.

The settlement funds were used to develop the residential areas of Fairview and Salisbury Park - both were originally cosmopolitan, but subsequently zoned white areas in terms of the Group Areas Act. Claimants are now receiving transfer of well- located prime land, developed to full municipal standards and with ready access to a range of services.

The investment of the settlement funds into development has been beneficial to the local construction and allied industries. More significantly, it has provided a valuable asset to claimants that is five- to six-fold more than the notional settlement value of their claims. The settlement values of R20000, R30000 and R40000 determined for the land claims achieved sites of 400m², 600m² and 800m² respectively, to full municipal standards.

The Pelcra settlement deals with 1200 claims by people dispossessed of rights in land and affects about 5000 longest surviving direct descendants as co-claimants. Pelcra was established in 1993 in anticipation of the new constitutional land (not cash payment) restitution process. With the assistance of the Legal Resources Centre, the Urban Services Group and other progressive development consultants, the claims process was taken forward.

In early 1994, Pelcra embarked on a participation process with its members to formulate a proposal for settlement, which it wanted to present to the Regional Land Claims Commission.

The earlier Pelcra meetings were typified by an outpouring of anger and pain, and served as a catalyst for reconciliation in the region. It was the first time that victims of the Group Areas Act had an opportunity to let go of feelings pent up for so many years.

While some of the main sites of removal - such as Korsten and South End - had been redeveloped, the major part of Fairview (300ha) and the whole of Salisbury Park (18ha) remained undeveloped. The land claimants to Fairview and Salisbury Park were faced with a hard choice - should they insist on restoration of actual properties (many of them sizable but unserviced allotments), or should they settle for smaller and serviced sites to allow for the accommodation of the South Enders and others dispossessed in the bay area? Pelcra members were clear that the land at Fairview and Salisbury Park would be shared.

By April 1997, after many workshops with the claimants, Pelcra was in a position to hand over its proposal for settlement to Peter Mayende, then national land claims commissioner. Unfortunately, the Regional Land Claims Commission was still building capacity, so the proposal was not attended to. With the arrival of Tozi Gwanya as the new national commissioner in 1998, the proposal was given due attention.

In February 2000, Pelcra, the Department of Land Affairs, the provincial department of housing, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality and the Regional Land Claims Commission concluded an agreement that detailed the steps for the settlement of a first phase on behalf of 840 claimants, or groups of co-claimants, claiming restitution of 1286 urban residential sites.

The agreement created the framework for ensuring that an individualised claimant settlement agreement would be crafted and concluded for each subgroup of co-claimants as surviving decedents. The deal was that the Department of Land Affairs would provide the funding equating to the settlement value of R42m; the provincial department of housing the land to be developed; the municipality the bulk infrastructure; the Regional Land Claims Commission would expedite the verification and settlement of the individual claims; and Pelcra would assist, particularly in keeping the claimants "on board".

An important step in the agreement was the establishment of an implementing agency, the Port Elizabeth Land Restitution and Housing Association (Pelrha), which was set up in May 2000.

By June 2004, the land was ready to be transferred to Pelrha so that it could be transferred to the claimants. But now the process depended on active state involvement and it is here where the trouble started. The first portion of land in Fairview was transferred in October 2008 - it took more than four years for this transfer to occur. Despite difficulties, 560 of the 900 sites developed in Fairview have been transferred.

But the transfer of 18ha of land in Salisbury Park is still to be completed - the development and township establishment was completed in June 2004. The transfer of this land is now six years in the waiting.

This final part of the process has run into serious trouble due to the ineptitude of the province, the state attorney's office and a lack of commitment to land restitution by the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality.

And there are other matters relating to land claims that the Regional Land Claims Commission has to attend to. These relate to: missing claimant files; claimants who have been verified as having valid claims that are yet to be settled; the phase 2 claimants, who are being denied the land settlement option, despite an agreement; and underprovision with respect to the settlement for phase 1 claimants. Faleni's appointment as regional commissioner in 2003 has seen these matters unresolved, despite them being brought regularly to her attention since then.

The most devastating aspect of the lack of service delivery, and the state taking so long to make good on its promise, is that many of the originally dispossessed claimants have died, or are at the end of the road.

Let us honour our constitution, and return land to the claimants as quickly as possible.

By Clive Felix

- Clive Felix is director of PELRAH