South Africa's slow-moving land reform programme, aimed at returning land seized by whites after 1913 to blacks, has so far failed to eradicate poverty, the president of the ruling ANC party has said.

"Our land reform has so far not been linked to rural development," African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma said in a speech reported Sunday on public broadcaster SA FM.

"Our view is that changes in land ownership have not transformed social relations and have not succeeded in combatting rural poverty and promoting rural development," he told graduating students of the University of Zululand in eastern KwaZulu-Natal Province.

"We need to empower the poor through land reform," said Zuma, the party's presidential hopeful in the 2009 poll.

The land restitution programme focuses on returning land to blacks that was seized by whites after 1913.

At the onset of democracy in 1994, some 87 percent of agricultural land in the country was owned by whites, who make up less than 10 percent of the population.

Thirteen years later, around four percent of land, or four million hectares (nearly 10 million acres), have been transferred to blacks, a recent report by think tank Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) said.

The government promised to redistribute 30 percent of white-owned land by 2014.

"The economic viability of many rural regions of the country is under threat, which could lead to serious negative consequences for the broader economy and society," said CDE executive director Ann Bernstein in the May report.

Land reform was taking place "far too slowly" to reach the target of 30 percent -- 25 million hectares -- by 2014, it said.

There is "absolutely no prospect" of meeting a 2008 deadline for completing all land restitution claims, it added.

South African lawmakers late last month announced the shelving of proposed legislation which the government had hoped to use to speed up the land reform programme by allowing it to expropriate land.

The expropriation bill, which raised the ire of many after it was first introduced in April, was done away with due to improper consultation, the parliamentary committee on public works said.