Zuma wants 1913 Land Act undone

Land Act.

“We are now in charge of our own destiny. We have achieved a successful transition to democracy, but we have not yet fully reversed the dreadful pattern of poverty and landlessness — the havoc created by the Natives Land Act,” said Zuma on Thursday.

“Correcting the consequences of this act is a critical cog in the wheel of state. It is a crucial component in the National Development Plan.”
The act dispossessed land from black and “native” South Africans.

Zuma said it marked the beginning of the socio-economic challenges the country now faced.
“The act was enforced for 78 years until it was repealed in 1991, and during these many years it did enormous damage, so much so that despite 22 intervening years, the legacy of the act stubbornly persists,” he said.

“We take our hats off to the black people of this country and to the Khoi and the San people, for not allowing the pain of the past to stand in the way of building the present and the future.

“The pain of being driven off one’s land is worse than anything one can imagine.”
Zuma said the government admitted that the land redistribution progress had been slow, and that the 2014 redistribution target would not be met.

Until now, only 6.7 million hectares of land had been transferred through redistribution and restitution.
“We call on all South Africans to commemorate this landmark, with a view to correcting the wrongs of the past and to reinforce reconciliation,” Zuma said.

“We urge the public to participate in the process of improving land redistribution and reform to reverse the impact of the 1913 act.”
In another development, President Zuma yesterday told shack dwellers near Cape Town he was shocked to see the conditions in which DA rule had left them.

“When the DA speaks in Parliament they say things have improved,” Zuma told a crowd of a few hundred people in Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay.
“I came to see for myself, and I have been shocked to see my people live in these conditions.”

The president went from door-to-door, talking to residents at length, and repeated the exercise in the nearby fishing community of Hangklip.
Media were crowded out of homes he visited by a massive security contingent.

But staff reported that Zuma commiserated with neighbours of a woman who died days ago when her dwelling caught fire.
He asked another why the DA was in power there.

She retorted that she had voted for the ANC, and invited him to check on that.
An unemployed, but qualified nanny, Pumla, said she planned to vote for the ANC next year, and had come to see Zuma because his visit had brought some hope.

“It’s just promises probably, but even if the promise is empty you still want that hope,” she said.
ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza said the visit was part of the president’s grassroots campaign for the 2014 elections, now 10 months away. — fin24.com/Sapa.