The more things change…

In the realm of media relations and broader communications, there are key fundamentals which cannot be altered.

One of those is transparency, with nothing being swept under the carpet when providing vital information to the public – especially on a matter as crucial as land restitution.

This week, Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza – one of the hard-working government officials – launched study findings on the evaluation of the land restitution programme.

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This was conducted in partnership with Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation – said to have cost the taxpayer close to R27 million.

The importance of such a study cannot be overemphasised, with millions of black South Africans still reeling from the scars of apartheid laws like the 1913 Natives Land Act, which restricted non-whites from buying or occupying land, except as employees.

It opened the door for white ownership of 87% of land, leaving black people to scramble for what was left.

Decades later saw the National Party coming up with the Group Areas Act of 1950 – a legislation driving separate development based on race.

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The impact of this law saw our family, who resided in a huge farmland in Salisbury Park of Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), being targeted for forced removal – leading to us not just losing land that we owned, but also cattle.

Transported in a big truck full of our belongings, we were forced to stay in a four-roomed municipal-owned house in dusty Zwide township – far away from Salisbury, which was to be designated “for whites only”.

That is how deep the land question runs.

Didiza’s launch of government’s restitution programme left me angry on many fronts, because there was just so much wrong.

Land Claims refused to give journalists copies of the study, saying it was “to be further discussed in a conference of experts” still to be convened.

Why launch a study, which is still work in progress?

Launching the research in a media briefing and affording the media access to copies of the research would have helped in ensuring depth on such an important subject.

Coming to the content of the research, merely shared in a press statement, experts spoken to found nothing earth-shattering.

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Given our apartheid history and three decades of constitutional democracy under ANC rule, it is sad that land reform has barely altered the agrarian structure of the country.

Professor Siona O’Connell, an African Studies scholar at the University of Pretoria, who has now taken flak for being outspoken on restitution failures, could not have put it better when she said it was no understatement that three decades of democracy were squandered through lack of restorative justice and the land restitution programme.

O’Connell said land and opportunity lay “at the heart of the South African condition – a deeply unequal country, caught in the crosshairs of state capture, political and personal opportunism”.

“As we look towards the 30th anniversary of the birth of South Africa’s democracy, I don’t believe that it is an understatement to say that three decades have been squandered, regarding restorative justice and the land restitution programme,” said O’Connell.

From Elandskloof in the Western Cape, to Zebediela and Livubu, South Africa has seen several failures of land restitution, with government paying lip service to offering black landowners real support and continued training. So much for decades without fundamental change.