Welcome to Rastafari Speaks
  Login/Create an Account Homepage | Interactive Home | Weblog | Links | Forums  

Main Menu
· Interactive Home 
· Search 
· Stories Archive 
· Surveys 
· AvantGo 
· Recommend Us 
· Feedback 
· Web Links 
· Private Messages 
· Your Account 
· Amazon Shopping 

Website Links

· AfricaSpeaks Home 
· Rasta Times 
· Articles/Archive 
· News Weblog 
· Rastafari Archive 
· Marcus Garvey 
· Haile Selassie 
· Message Board 
· Reasoning Forum 
· Black Africans 
· Reasoning Archive 
· Sudan Crisis 
· Zimbabwe 
· Haiti's Coup 
· Venezuela/Chavez 

Website Info.

· About Us 
· Terms of Use 
· Fair Use Notice 
· Privacy Policy 

Big Story of Today
There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet.

Categories Menu
  • African Diaspora
  • Book Reviews
  • Caribbean
  • Caribbean Views
  • Haile Selassie
  • Israel/Palestine
  • Marcus Garvey
  • Poetry
  • Psychology
  • Racism Watch
  • Rasta Revolution
  • Rastafari
  • South America
  • Spirituality
  • Syria
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • U.S.A.
  • War and Terror
  • War on Libya
  • War with Russia
  • Women
  • World Focus

  • Old Articles
    Thursday, May 19
    ·
    Monday, April 25
    ·
    Friday, April 22
    · Denying Discrimination: Clintonian Political Calculus and the Culture of Hooey
    Wednesday, December 09
    · The Religious Element of Terrorism
    Sunday, November 29
    ·
    Saturday, November 21
    · The Paris Attacks and the White Lives Matter Movement
    Sunday, September 27
    · Freedom Rider: Ahmed Mohamed and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
    Monday, August 10
    ·
    Saturday, June 20
    · America Prosecutes the World
    Wednesday, April 29
    · Skip Gates and Sony Exposed by Wikileaks

    Older Articles

    Books
    Buy Books

    African Diaspora: SOUTH AFRICA: Land ownership remains racially skewed
    Posted on Wednesday, May 25 @ 14:57:31 UTC by Rasta

    Africa Johannesburg, irinnews.org

    Eleven years into democratic rule, South Africa's white minority population still controls most of the productive agricultural land, government officials acknowledged earlier this week.

    The land affairs department told parliament's budget committee that whites still owned about 82 percent of commercial farmland, despite ongoing efforts to get more land into the hands of the black population.

    Since the ruling African National Congress party took power in April 1994, an estimated 3.5 million ha of land has been transferred through restitution and redistribution - far short of the 30 percent target they hoped to reach by 2004.

    Land rights activists have been quick to point out that the slow pace of reform has been partly due to the 'willing buyer, willing seller' system.

    "From the figures we can see that the government's land reform programme is not on track. By now, more land should have been transferred, and although the government has revised the target date to 2015, it is highly unlikely that it will achieve its goal," said Ruth Hall, a land and agrarian researcher at the University of the Western Cape.

    Hall explained to IRIN that although the budget for land reform was substantially increased with the assistance of international donors, the additional funding was unlikely to keep up with soaring land prices.

    Belgium recently stepped in and approved US $15 million for the "fast-tracking settlement" of restitution claims and post-settlement support.

    "The financial commitment to the process is welcomed, but given the rising price of land, especially in areas where it is most needed, the government will find that its land reform budget is inadequate. If land transfer is to be successful it should not just be about offering a fair price to sellers, but also about national development," she commented.

    The core challenge was the need for state intervention to make suitable land available to meet local needs, rather than relying wholly on the market and the willingness of current owners to sell.

    "This is not to say that there aren't willing sellers, but what we have found is that very often the land that is up for sale is either not productive, or in areas where the need is not critical," Hall pointed out.

    Land reform advocates have also claimed that the lack of a "common strategy" to address post-settlement support threatened to undermine the gains made thus far.

    "At the moment there isn't a coordinated approach between the various government departments responsible for land reform. While on paper there appears to be a plan in place to assist land claimants, in reality most of these new farmers have never even heard of it," said Marc Wegerif, land policy officer of the Nkuzi Development Association, a land reform NGO.

    According to Wegerif, apart from additional resources, an "integrated" approach by government was needed to help newly resettled farmers gain better access to agricultural support.


     
    Related Links
    · More about Africa
    · News by Rasta


    Most read story about Africa:
    Freemasonry: Ancient Afrikan/ Kemetic/ Egyptian communal way of life and being


    Article Rating
    Average Score: 3.66
    Votes: 3


    Please take a second and vote for this article:

    Excellent
    Very Good
    Good
    Regular
    Bad


    Options

     Printer Friendly Printer Friendly



    Views expressed on our Websites are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared, endorsed, or recommended by the management and staff of RastafariSpeaks.com.

    All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest © 2004- 2008 RastafariSpeaks.com.
    You can syndicate our news using the file backend.php or ultramode.txt

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.09 Seconds
    AfricaSpeaks.com