More white farms face expropriation

Mon, 19 Feb 2007

Six more white-owned farms in South Africa face being expropriated by the State after a breakdown in negotiations for an agreed sale, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Peter Mhangwani, the land claims commissioner of the northern Mpumalanga province, told the City Press that he had run out of patience after land owners either refused access to surveyors or demanded unrealistic prices.

"The high prices stall the restitution process," said the commissioner.

"We cannot wait any longer. That is why I have six expropriation applications on my desk."

Apartheid land imbalances

Mhangwani said the expropriation orders had still to be assessed by the province's lawyers but, if implemented, would mark a significant acceleration in efforts to rectify apartheid land-ownership imbalances.

Central government announced last week that it was directly expropriating a white-owned farm for the first time.

The announcement came after the land affairs department gave final approval for the expropriation of a 25 200-hectare farm in Northern Cape Province on 15 March. This followed the failure of its owners, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, to agree on a settlement after more than two years of negotiations.

The church had requested R70-million ($9.8-million) but the State offered only R35.5-million on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

The government has set itself a target of settling nearly 7000 rural land claims before its deadline at the end of 2008.

Pretoria is keen to finalize these claims and assure foreign investors it will not follow the same path as its neighbour Zimbabwe, which was plunged into crisis when white farms were seized and given to landless blacks.

Black ownership of land has increased from 13 percent at the end of apartheid in 1994 to about 16 percent.