Opposition parties, non- governmental organisations (NGOs) working in rural development, and representatives of farm workers are all concerned that the green paper does not describe how communal land will be managed.

In its submission, the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), which represents many rural communities, says the paper does not give priority to the rural poor. Less than 6% of land has been redistributed to date, and although the green paper itself criticises the government's previous strategic blunders, the centre argues that the draft policy also does not identify strategies to address this challenge.

Contributors to the green paper differ on whether the paper goes far enough in addressing land and agrarian transformation while striking a balance with the important government priority of ensuring food security.

The LRC first focuses on the issue of procedure for public engagement. It says the Constitutional Court, in its judgment declaring the Communal Land Rights Act unconstitutional, insisted that any new law that affects living customary law must comply with section 76 of the constitution. This means the provincial legislatures have to get involved in formulating a land reform policy and provincial hearings must be held.

The LRC then expresses grave concern about the green paper's inability to suggest bold steps to grant women and youth land ownership rights in areas controlled by traditional leaders. The LRC says this is a tacit endorsement of the distortion of customary law and will bolster the unilateral power of chiefs and undermine indigenous accountability mechanisms.

"The laws are (being) criticised for entrenching the colonial and apartheid distortions and divisions that were central to the creation of the Bantustan political system and used to justify the denial of equal citizenship to all South Africans," it says.

The LRC ends by urging that the green paper should fully implement the African National Congress resolution adopted at Polokwane in 2007 which calls for "the allocation of customary land" in a democratised manner that "empowers rural women and supports the building of democratic community structures at village level, capable of driving and coordinating local development processes".

In a joint presentation, a group of NGOs including the Mawubuye Land Rights Forum, the Makukhanye Rural Organisation, the Rural People's Movement, Iliziwi Lamafama, Siyazakha and the Mopani Farmers' Union express concern about the paper's lack of continuity with other processes such as the National Summit of 2005. They also object that the present green paper is a continuation of past policy positions such as its recognition of the willing buyer, willing seller (WBWS) fundamentals. The organisations say the paper fails to accept that this principle has "distorted the land market and has failed to deliver land to the poor".

"The WBWS is an issue that hangs over from the 2005 National Summit which already indicated that the WBWS was not facilitating land transformation. Yet there has been no change, and no scrapping of this market-led policy framework," the coalition argues. It points to the emphasis still being on industrial farming.

The coalition further says the green paper does not outline how women will be assured of having access to land, and argues that there appears to be very little focus on changing existing patterns of ownership.

"There is a lack of clarity or vision on land distribution: it says nothing about the role of the state in land redistribution," the coalition argues.

Hopewell Radebe

The Times