30 percent of South African state land to be given to black famers
CAPE TOWN, June 20 (AFP) - The amount of state land in South Africa to
be
redistributed to black farmers is to be doubled from 15 to 30 percent,
Deputy
Land and Agricultural Affairs Minister Dirk du Toit announced Tuesday.
The process, designed to stave off the violent land grabs currently
afflicting neighbouring Zimbabwe, was expected to take about 15 years, Du
Toit
told parliament, according to the SAPA news agency.
His announcement follows a statement by President Thabo Mbeki last month
that the government was considering giving more land to black farmers than
the
15 percent it had previously promised.
The redistribution, Mbeki said then, was part of the government's
attempts
to address the inequalities in land ownership in South Africa, where whites
still control at least 80 percent of agricultural land.
As an indication of the slow pace of reform, the new democratic
government,
since it came to power in 1994, has only managed to redistribute 0.81
percent
of the 32 million hectares (79 million acres) of the country's privately-
owned
commercial farmland.
Addressing parliament's portfolio committee on land affairs Tuesday,
Land
and Agricultural Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza said commercial banks had
been
approached to assist in financing the redistribution of farm land.
"The banks are willing to participate in the redistribution of land,"
she
said.
Didiza said the government did not own sufficient land to cover its
redistribution targets and would have to purchase farm land on the market,
as
well as induce farmers to sell their land.
Agriculture department planners have estimated government's land reform
plans will cost the country about 5.5 billion rand (785 million dollars)
over
the next 15 to 20 years, depending on the size of the grants offered to
farmers.
The government also would welcome donations of farm land from white
farmers, Didiza said.
Government land redistribution programmes are intended to redress skewed
land ownership, enabled by the Land Act of 1913 which allocated 87 percent
of
arable land to the white minority and the rest to the black majority.
Mbeki has assured white farmers that land redistribution in South Africa
would be done in accordance with the constitution.
In Zimbabwe, some 1,500 white-owned commercial farms have been invaded
by
veterans of that country's liberation war in a violent land grab that has
the
blessing of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.
bur/br/sst
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