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The National Planning Commission’s recently released National Development Plan (NDP) contains a number of proposals which directly contradict government’s Draft Green Paper on Land Reform.

The Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, must publicly clarify whose take on government’s land reform policy is right- his department’s or Minister Manuel’s.

The contradictions in these two documents reveal the extent of government’s lack of policy coherence, and the lack of buy-in from Minister Manuel’s cabinet colleagues for his Commission’s plan.

I will be submitting a series of parliamentary questions to Minister Nkwinti to find out how he reconciles the proposals made in the Draft Green Paper with those contained in the NDP.

The NDP makes three key proposals which are at odds with the Draft Green Paper:

• Communal land rights: The NDP identifies insufficient tenure security for black farmers in communal areas as “the first major risk” to the objective of building “integrated and inclusive” rural economies. It is estimated that 21 million South Africans live on more than 17 million hectares of communal land, which amounts to around 14% of the country’s total land area. It is therefore unfathomable that the communal land rights issue is not addressed in the Draft Green Paper on Land Reform. The NPC’s policy recommendations confirm the DA’s position that the discussion about redistribution makes no sense in the absence of concrete proposals with regard to communal land.

• Land Valuer-General: The DA has raised questions about the constitutionality of the Land Valuer-General, as proposed in the Draft Green Paper. This office is supposed to determine financial compensation in cases of land expropriation. However, the NDP does not mention the Valuer-General proposal at all, and steers clear of referring to expropriation of land. Instead, the NDP explicitly states that the transfer or land must be done in a way that does not distort markets or business confidence.

• The role of stakeholders: It is not clear whether the Land Rights Management Committees proposed by the Green Paper will be replaced with the District Land Committees tasked with the identification of land available for reform in the National Development Plan. A stakeholder forum with real input into the land reform process will be a positive development. Multiple layers of bureaucracy will not.

South Africa needs a land reform programme that addresses the need for transformation in rural communities whilst maintaining the competitiveness of commercial agriculture. Clarity will be the key to getting all stakeholders committed to the implementation of programmes aimed at redress, and it is up to the Minister to provide this.