Former president Kgalema Motlanthe has conceded that the leasing of land to communities in the country’s rural areas is problematic.
Motlanthe was delivering a diagnostic report of the Land Reform Panel which he chairs.
He’s among senior members of the African National Congress (ANC) that are attending a two-day Land Summit in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg.
The Summit is expected to explore how the ruling party will be able to address the issue around land reform.
“The land belongs to the people, and that’s what we must try and understand as this liberation movement, which has the responsibility to liberate our people from all the sufferings they had. I mean, you know it’s so painful that you have people who have lived on a piece of land for generations, and today they are being told they must take up leases,” says Motlanthe.
Earlier, President of the country and the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the summit.
He says the gathering is to give effect to the demand that was articulated in the Freedom Charter in 1955 that the land shall be shared among those who work it.
“We are through are presence here giving dedicated attention to this fundamental task because the resolution of the land question in SA is central to the achievement of a national democratic society. This task we are involved in was aptly described by David Pilling when he wrote recently in the Financial Times of London that addressing the land question we are in effect yielding to the inevitability of history.”
Watch Ramaphosa’s address below:
