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It's difficult to say how this will play out. The constitution of SA was changed recently, and says that the Minister of Land Affairs can confiscate any land if deemed in the public interest, and compensate the owner whatever the government sees as a fair price. This amendment has a little history. The "willing seller-willing buyer" process did not work well, mainly because government appraisers of property value consistently undervalued farmland by as much as 50%, and farmers were then obviously not willing to sell. The high court in SA ruled against the goverment in a landmark case, and that prompted this amendment. Technically, it means the SA government can take land without compensating the owner, if it is deemed to be in the public interest. The landowner has no recourse to the government structures or legal structures now. In my opinion, this is an election year ploy that may go bad. I'm hesitant to dismiss it purely as scare tactics. Little known about SA is the way affirmative action and company ownership was forced on the SA population, and I have to draw this parallel. The ANC goverment passed a law that every company employing more than 100 people must have a workforce at every level, that at least reflected the make-up of the SA population, 80% black, 13% white etc, within 5 years. If companies did not comply, they were fined up to ZAR 5 million, enough to bankrupt many small companies. Two things happened, firstly unqualified blacks were put in positions to simply "window-dress", and secondly, companies had to fire whites to reduce the ratio. Also, companies who did not have at least 50% black ownership were excluded from government tenders. Against that background, my fear is that the ANC has the same agenda here, thinking that land ownership should reflect the make-up of the SA population, and they now have the power to just confiscate land to make this happen. Namibia has already publically announced they will do the same. While it may seem like a noble and fair idea, it just is not practical, and certainly not fair. And as we see from the goverment response, anyone who disagrees is a racist. The SA government owns stacks of land, former military test ranges etc, why do they not populate that first?

Namibia prepares to take white farmland

February 26 2004 at 06:53AM

By Tabby Moyo and Peter Fabricius

Windhoek - Namibia is about to start grabbing white farms to speed up redistribution of land to blacks.

Making the announcement on national television, Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab said the decision had been forced upon the government by farmers who were unwilling to sell their land to the government for resettlement.

"The government has come to realise that the willing-seller, willing-buyer approach is cumbersome."

'More than 240 000 landless people are currently awaiting resettlement'
"As a result, it would not be able to keep up with the high public demand for land," Gurirab said.

The Namibia Agricultural Union said it would officially react to the government move only on Thursday.

The announcement, which came as Namibia prepares for elections, drew hushed responses on Wednesday night, although some Namibians seemed certain to draw comparisons with Zimbabwe's land-grab programme.

A European diplomat, who preferred not to be named, said: "Well, it's campaign time. What can I say? I don't think the white farmers should have anything to worry about... the government is under pressure for land."

At a congress held by the ruling Swapo party two years ago, President Sam Nujoma warned that the government could be forced to change its approach of obtaining farms for resettlement if farmers were unwilling to part with their land.

Gurirab said on Wednesday night: "The (willing seller) process has become slow because of arbitrarily inflated land prices and the availability of productive land. More than 240 000 landless people are currently awaiting resettlement."

"In this context, the cabinet has endorsed the recommendation by the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation to consider the other approach to land reform."

"That includes expropriating a selected number of farms for resettlement."

He also expressed anger at white farmers who were evicting their workers, leaving them with nowhere to go.

"The government has witnessed with dismay and outrage how farmworkers are left destitute and dumped with their families and belongings at the side of the road by their employers."

"In this process, the Labour Act is flouted and unrest has arisen in certain parts of our country," said Gurirab.

Last week, a farmer near Windhoek flouted a court order to re-instate six employees who were found to have been illegally dismissed from his farmlands.

Gurirab stressed that fair and reasonable compensation would be paid to the farmers whose farms were expropriated, as stipulated in the constitution.

"The government will ensure that land reform and expropriation of land in Namibia is done in accordance with the Namibian constitution and the relevant legislation," he said.

Since independence in 1990, more than 34 000 Namibians have been resettled on commercial farmland.

About 243 000 people still need to be resettled.

A total of 9,5-million hectares of land is required in the next five years, officials have said. - Independent Foreign Service