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Sep 06, 2007:
A panel of experts has recommended that all potential property buyers disclose their race, gender and nationality, and that will include "substantial shareholders" in land-owning companies.
The panel has been investigating the foreign ownership of land. The report was presented to cabinet in July, but was not released until Monday.
The panel, lead by Prof Shadrack Gutto from Unisa, says it is currently difficult to assess the quantity of land owned by foreigners with their best estimate being that foreigners own around 3% of land used for residential housing, agricultural holdings, farm land and sectional titles.
This will be much higher in coastal and game farming areas, they say.
Once the experts have a better handle on information regarding corporations and trusts, the size and value will be much higher, they say.
To improve the information and statistics, the panel recommends that all property owners should be obliged to make compulsory declarations for all past, present and future registrations of property - along the lines of the disclosures demanded by the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica).
The panel also recommends that special ministerial approval be required for certain categories of land to be sold to foreigners, especially where such a change has the potential to negatively affect the state's constitutional obligations to effect land reform or land restitution.
Total ban There should be a total ban on foreign ownership of land, the ten member panel suggests, in the national interest for environmental considerations, and in areas of historical and cultural significance, or for reasons of national security.
Such land would include national key points, coastal areas, conservation areas, land close to military installations, or international boundaries and in water catchment areas.
The government should be able to expropriate such land if it is already in foreign hands and either hold it in state hands or allocate it to authorised nationals.
The panel points out that the lack of a national policy on the regulation of land owned by foreigners is not the norm among those countries with comparable economic systems or even those with more advanced economies.
They also say that ordinary citizens, both black and white, feel very strongly that the acquisition of prime land by foreigners is denying them affordable access and "rendering them strangers in their own country".
The recommendations will require legislative changes, which the panel hopes will be accommodated in one catch-all amendment bill.
Speaking in Pretoria on Monday one of the panelists, Mandla Mabuza, explained what happens next: "It is entirely up to the Department [of Agriculture and Land Affairs] in what it does in terms of possible legislation or the policy framework," he said.
The panel was first constituted by the previous Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza in August 2004. - Michael Hamlyn, I-Net Bridge
