During apartheid, there were a lot of forced displacement or land grabbing and the victims of the forced displacement have approached the Church seeking support in their cause for justice. The government established a program for the reparation for internally displaced people during apartheid but this program is in a state of a crisis. In this article, we describe the crisis.
The reparation program is facing a huge backlog, and the clearing of the backlog of land restitution claims or land reparation claims is not seen as a top priority for the government.
How We Got Here
The deadline for submitting land restitution claims was originally 1998. According to the Restitution of Land Rights Act, only land taken after 1913 due to racially discriminatory laws or policies qualified for restitution. The idea was mainly to compensate communities forcibly removed under apartheid — so-called “black spot” removals — and to complete the process within five years. After that, government planned to focus on land redistribution.
But five, ten, and now over twenty years later, restitution is still far from complete:
- A 2017 High Level Panel report led by former president Kgalema Motlanthe found that more than 7,000 old claims remain unsettled and over 19,000 are not finalised. At the current pace, it could take 43 years to clear them.
- In 2014, the Zuma administration reopened the claims process despite many 1998 claims still unresolved. This was partly to strengthen political ties with rural communities and traditional leaders.
- In the first 12 months after reopening, about 160,000 new claims were submitted — double the number lodged before 1998.
- Communities with long-pending claims challenged the new law in court, arguing it would delay justice even further.
- In 2016, the Constitutional Court declared the 2014 Amendment Act invalid. It ruled that all old claims must be finalised before new ones are processed. The court recognised the new claims but froze them until the backlog is cleared.
- Parliament was given 24 months to pass new legislation. If not, the Chief Land Claims Commissioner must seek a court order to guide how new claims are handled.
- Treasury estimates suggest that processing the existing new claims could take 200 years and cost around R600 billion.
- If claims reopen again, the High Level Panel predicts as many as 397,000 new claims, which could take an impossible 709 years to resolve.
Even if these numbers are overstated, it’s clear that restitution will take decades and massive resources to complete.
Why Progress Has Been So Slow
The 2014 decision to reopen claims came without a proper plan to fix the problems that had already slowed restitution. Key challenges include:
- The Land Commission was never properly funded or staffed to handle even the first wave of claims and was overwhelmed.
- Many staff lacked the legal, historical, and technical skills needed. Filing systems and databases were weak, records were lost or stolen, and high staff turnover meant knowledge was often lost.
- In 1999, government created an administrative process to speed things up by bypassing the courts. Instead, it led to poor-quality decisions, weak oversight, and corruption.
- Claims were bundled together, and many Communal Property Associations (CPAs) created to manage land became dysfunctional or were hijacked by individuals seeking personal gain.
- Some settlements broke the law and may need to be overturned.
- Many overlapping and competing claims now fuel ethnic and tribal tensions. In some areas, hostility has escalated dangerously — for example, in the Lowveld, where Sotho and Tsonga groups dispute land rights, tensions are high and sometimes violent.
The Cost to the Economy
The stalled restitution process is also holding back economic growth, especially in agriculture:
- Long-running disputes make farmers reluctant to invest in their land, leading to reduced production, job losses, and higher rural unemployment.
- Some of the most contested land — such as parts of the Lowveld — has huge potential for agricultural exports, but that potential is wasted.
- Even where land has been successfully returned, economic benefits for recipients have been limited. A wide range of studies show poor outcomes — most restitution projects have underperformed badly.
- Workers and tenants on restituted land often lose jobs or housing security.
- Some black farmers who received redistributed land later discovered it was still under claim and were forced to abandon farming.
- Ongoing legal disputes over large areas of land also block broader land redistribution efforts.
What Lies Ahead
South Africa faces some tough choices. A Constitutional Court process due in July 2018 will guide the handling of new claims, but it won’t solve the core problem: tens of thousands of old claims remain unresolved and 160,000 new ones are in limbo.
Some believe these new claims — many seeking cash compensation — will be quick to resolve. But every claim must still go through a lengthy validation process, and many overlap with old claims or involve land already redistributed. This will deepen the existing confusion and further undermine the stability and productivity of commercial farmland.
Others think expropriation without compensation will fix everything. It won’t. It won’t solve the shortage of administrative capacity, nor will it resolve the overlapping and conflicting claims clogging the system. And compensating all claimants regardless of merit — as some have suggested — would place enormous pressure on public finances.
At the current pace, many claimants will never see a resolution in their lifetimes. And while the President has identified agriculture as a key driver of growth, this potential will not be realised if vast areas of land remain locked in legal disputes.
The Way Forward
Land reform is complex everywhere, and South Africa is no exception. We urgently need a national conversation on how to:
- Handle new claims fairly and realistically
- Provide enough funding, skills, and legal support to finalise old claims
- Partner effectively with business, civil society, and farming organisations
Right now, discussions in Parliament and elsewhere are happening without enough input from the business sector. But business cannot afford to stay on the sidelines — especially when populist land policies can affect every sector of the economy. A coordinated approach and a credible land reform strategy are essential — and clearing the restitution backlog must be at the heart of it.
Only once we make significant progress on restitution can South Africa unlock the full potential of black and white farmers working together to grow jobs and boost the economy.
