Minister admits to significant gap in land audits
Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti: ‘Our biggest challenge remains the answer to the question, Who owns South Africa?’
The government’s land audits have not been able to reveal fully who owns and uses the country’s agricultural land, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti says. The government needs a comprehensive land audit to assess the performance of its land reform programme. Not nearly enough reform has occurred since 1994. Nkwinti said in his budget speech in Parliament that an accurate record of all public agricultural land was needed. "Our biggest challenge remains the answer to the question, Who owns South Africa?" Nkwinti said. "In terms of phase 1 of our land audit, it became clear that we still needed to conduct an audit [to identify] land ownership by race, gender and nationality," he said. "We have just concluded the latter process. However, there are still huge challenges because of gaps as a result of the absence of information in respect of institutions such as trusts, private and public organisations and companies, as well as sectional title holdings." Nkwinti sa...
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