President Cyril Ramaphosa has moved to assure restive traditional leaders and international investors that government’s land reform programme will not undermine the authority of traditional leaders and erode property rights.
The ongoing land reform public engagement road-shows have been a scene of heightened tensions and communities and land owners exchanged heated debates during parliamentary public hearings.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is to meet King of AmaZulu Goodwill Zwelithini over the weekend to discuss concerns he raised about the possible dissolution of the Ingonyama Trust.
On Wednesday the King, during an address to AmaZulu, warned that they would resist any attempt to dissolve the trust which accounts for about 60 percent of rural land in KwaZulu Natal.
Speaking at the BRICS breakfast meeting in Pretoria, President Ramaphosa said government has no intention to take land away from traditional leaders.
“I would like to make it very clear it is not governments intention to go and grab land from rural communities, land that is under the control of traditional leaders. And more particularly we have no intention whatsoever to go and grab the land that is controlled by the Ingonyama Trust Fund. There is just no need for anyone to feel fearful about this. I am going to be meeting with his majesty the king to address this matter so that whatever fears he and the zulu nation has on this matter should be completely dispelled.”
On economic matters, government is to unveil new measures to mitigate the impact of the high petrol and fuel prices on the country’s citizens.
South Africans have been outraged by the massive increase in fuel prices including the one per cent tax hike which government has introduced to prop-up its dwindling coffers.
In a media statement the governing ANC made an impassioned plea to government to alleviate the financial pressure that the high fuel price has caused among the working class. Ramaphosa has appealed to businesses not to hike prices in response to the fuel price increase and urged them await government intervention.
“As a responsible government we will soon be announcing a package of measures, to ease the burden of these increases especially on the poor people in our country. Some of these measures will include the finalisation of the VAT exempt product and we call on retailers that they should hold back from imposing increases on food items and items that people use.”
The President has also urged the business sector to support government initiative to attract foreign direct investment. Just recently Ramaphosa appointed four investment envoys to raise 100 billion US dollars in the next five years to boost the economy.
Ramaphosa has encouraged the business executives attending a breakfast meeting in Pretoria to use the upcoming BRICS leaders summit to act as envoys to attract investments and also advice government on how to reduce government red tape that stifles investment flows.
“Are we able through our visa regime able to attract visitors including the BRICS into our country? And it’s through your participation that we should be able to shed some light to us. Is our regulatory framework too costly? These are issues that we would want you to be commenting to us on.”
The BRICS leaders summit will take place in Johannesburg from the 25 to the 27th later this month.
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