Fast Facts no 12 - December 2011

Contents:

• Land
  The green paper on land reform claims to help the rural poor. Its effect will rather be to expand the State’s control over land and increase dependency on the ruling party. It will also give selected cadres increased scope to wield state power for personal advantage.
• Land reform
  The green paper on land reform proposes a single system of land tenure likely to put more and more land into government ownership. It also introduces three new bureaucratic structures which seek to oust court jurisdiction over property rights. Instead of helping black South Africans experience the security of land ownership, it seems intent on preventing them from acquiring this foundation for economic and political independence.
• Land
  The National Development Plan put forward by the National Planning Commission contradicts the green paper by emphasising the importance of secure tenure and urging pragmatism in land reform. But it is also fanciful.
• Farming
  The National Development Plan, in setting out its vision for 2030, sees agriculture as ‘having the potential to create close to 1 million new jobs’ within the next two decades. Like other government plans in the past, it sets out detailed job targets but offers no practical basis for achieving them.
• Economic forecasts
• Fast Stats