ACDP Opposes Illegal Land Invasions

Speech by Kevin Southgate Western Cape MPL - ACDP

Friday, 27 July 2001

In the Western Cape Provincial Legislature today, Kevin Southgate MPL
for the African Christian Democratic Party gave the following speech
about the recent illegal land occupations in the Western Cape and others
parts of South Africa:


Mr Speaker,

The issue of land and homelessness is a very challenging one, and the
more we politicize it, the more complex it becomes.

The ACDP strongly opposes any illegal invasion of land and calls on
government to prosecute political institutions that incite such anarchy
to the fullest extent of the law an in so doing promote respect for the
rule of law.

Although we have compassion for the landless people we cannot condone
Zimbabwe style land invasions as we saw two weeks ago in Gauteng and
more recently in the Western Cape because it creates economic
instability.

Having said that we must however acknowledge and reflect on the history
of our problem.

It is a known fact that the previous government did not allow black
people to own land, by excluding them from settling permanently in the
W. Cape through the regions preference policy, which limited access to
jobs and the influx control laws. For many years, families were
unfairly evicted, with no regard for their rights as individuals.
Successive white governments have used guns, expropriation of land and
taxes to take land away from blacks. Furthermore the orchestrated
development of factions within the black communities were use to
entrench their political agendas. (An example of this was the witdoeke)
Because of the violence people were forced to move from one piece of
land to another in order to protect themselves. This gave rise to
squatting which in turn led to the mushrooming of informal settlements.
Constant government harassment made peoples lives a misery. Today most
South Africans still do not own the land on which they live.

The question is what do we do to compensate people for this theft and
pillage.
The obvious answer is to make perpetrators of the crime compensate the
victims. But we know that this is a very sensitive and contentious
issue.
Mr Speaker the legacy of apartheid will be with us for a long time and
we cannot wish it away. On Monday the housing portfolio committee
visited various housing developments and I was once again confronted
with the stark realities of poverty, unemployment and homelessness. I
want to however commend those people who are relentlessly and genuinely
working towards addressing this serious challenge.

What I saw reminded me of the saying " what you sow you will reap"


However, this grim reality must not stop us from exploring all possible
avenues in our quest to uplift those who had suffered unjustly.

The solution to the problem lies squarely at the door of government and
it is now our responsibility to address those imbalances through a
programme of restoration and restitution. We must show our commitment
to such programmes and work towards expediting the allocation of land
through the legal framework that government has created and this must be
done in conjunction with an integrated development plan which will
enable us to build new towns and cities rather that housing clusters far
removed from peoples places of work as this will only exacerbate other
existing problems. Since large portions of land are privately owned it
is imperative that the provincial asset register provides substantial
information in order to identify and facilitate the rapid release of
available land.

We must begin to educate people regarding the legal frameworks and
various land use policies so people can understand that not all land is
suitable for housing developments. People also need to be informed
about their responsibilities in maintaining and sustaining the
developments. We must however be careful that we do not fall for a new
form of racism by applying lower standards for blacks than we would have
for whites. I say this because some of the developments we visited had
been allowed to deteriorate and degenerated as a result of poor quality
and bad workmanship.

Land reform is strategically important for redressing injustice due to
apartheid and can make a significant contribution to the alleviation of
poverty, however current budget allocations illustrate that the funding
for land reform and housing is not commensurate with its importance. The
unicity mayor, Peter Marias recently said that we need more subsidies
from national government and although that is true, we must not use it
as an excuse not to deliver. We must continue to pioneer and show that
despite the shortcomings we will raise the finances so we can provide a
better life for all. Whilst we are trying to apportion blame on each
other, people are becoming frustrated and disillusioned and this is the
reason why they are invading land indiscriminately. We must not
underestimate the peoples determination to have a piece of land which is
their own. A recent article reported and I quote "we are prepared to
die for the land which rightfully belongs to us".

Mr. Speaker no matter who the government is, people are desperate to
have a piece of land and because it appears that we are doing nothing
people are now developing a righteous anger towards government.


We need to re - look at the amounts of money we spend on unnecessary
bureaucracy and consultants, that does nothing but produce 500 page
documents telling us what we already know and retards progress.

We must re-assess our budgetary priorities, make land available and
remove the red tape involved in accessing state or private land.
I am sure all the monies lost through corruption plus the governments
R50 billion arms deal as well as the money being spent on the commission
investigating the alleged fraud scam in the unicity could have helped
towards alleviating our land / housing crisis.


We must not perpetuate the notion that people need handouts to survive.
We must develop programmes that promote skills development so people
can build their own houses. The concept of self-help schemes are not new
and they have proven to be very successful and financially viable. It
promotes job creation and positively contributes towards nation
building.

People want to do something for themselves.

_____

For more information please call Kevin Southgate MPL at 082 7881181 or
ACDP Media Liaison Liza Lambert at 082 4781037