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Politics and legalities of land reform unpacked in UFS/IRR webinar

11 February 2021 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Pixabay

The Department of Political Studies and Governance at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted a webinar with the South African Institute for Race Relations (IRR) on The Land Question in South Africa: Challenges and Prospects. This comes after South Africans had until 31 January 2021 to provide commentary on the Land Exploration Bill.

Experts from both the UFS and IRR delivered presentations on many of the challenges facing the land expropriation process and suggested it may not be as straightforward as the political fraternity would like it to be. The discussion was moderated by Prof Hussein Solomon, academic head of the Department of Political Studies and Governance at UFS. The webinar took place on Tuesday 3 February 2021.

Government failures hinder effective land reform implementation

The implementation of the Land Reform Bill is not straightforward, with various legal, political and social aspects to consider. Dr Ina Gouws, lecturer in Political Studies, mentioned in her presentation that the expression ‘smudge’ refers to “the management of policy implementation in South Africa which has been marred by an administration causing a massively smeared landscape, where little progress has been made towards growth (economic) or development. This ‘smudge’ also exists where land reform is to be planned, developed and implemented’’.

Dr Gouws added that land reform is necessary and “when implemented effectively has the potential to add to growth and development”.

How will land reform impact property rights?

One of the burning questions around the Land Reform Bill is whether property owners would forfeit their rights when the bill has been passed through parliament.

Dr Anthea Jeffrey, Head of Special Research at the IRR said it was discussed what the Bill would hold in store for property owners if there were no compensation if their land were expropriated. Dr Jeffrey stated that “the nil (zero) compensation under clause 12/3 of the Bill is a situation where the state plans to take ownership, in other words, it is envisaging a direct expropriation. But this clause refers to land only and raises questions about improvements that have been made to the land, such as buildings, shopping centres and mine shafts”.

Dire economic state of traditional communal land

Prof Phillippe Burger, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the UFS, said the webinar was a platform to engage over land reform as “it doesn’t get the attention that it should”. Prof Burger’s discussion was on The Forgotten: South Africa’s Former Bantustans today. He said land reform in South Africa focused on two issues the skew racial profile of commercial farm ownership, and the tenure rights of communal land under traditional leadership. “Communal land is actually the land of the former homelands or Bantustans of apartheid South Africa,” said Prof Burger

He said the dilapidated economic conditions of these former homelands could be measured by the number of pit toilets in schools in these areas. “The map of pit toilets basically traces out the map of the old homelands,” he said.

Watch: Recording of webinar here:

News Archive

UFS breakthrough on SRC

2005-06-10

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) today unanimously approved the establishment of a Central Student Representative Council (CSRC) to ensure the democratic participation of students at its three campuses in the governance of the university.

In a major breakthrough and transformation step for student governance, the Central SRC will include representatives of the main campus in Bloemfontein, the Vista campus and the Qwaqwa campus of the UFS.

The establishment of the Central SRC follows the incorporation of the Qwaqwa campus into the UFS in January 2003 and the incorporation of the Vista campus in Bloemfontein into the UFS in January 2004.

According to Dr Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: Student Affairs, today’s decision of Council is the result of a lengthy, negotiated agreement between the three campuses. Independent experts facilitated part of the process.

With the establishment of a Central SRC, the UFS has adopted a federal student governance model whereby the CSRC is the highest representative student body on matters of common concern for all students.

However, the three campuses of the UFS will retain autonomous SRC structures for each campus with powers and responsibilities for matters affecting the particular campus.

This arrangement will be reviewed after a year to make allowance for the phasing out of students at the Vista campus, as was agreed in the negotiations preceding the incorporation of that campus into the UFS.

The central SRC will have a maximum of 12 members made up of members of the campus SRCs, including the presidents of these three SRCs. In total, the main campus will have 5 representatives, the Qwaqwa campus will have 4 representatives and the Vista campus will have 3 representatives.

From these 12 members a central SRC president will be chosen on a quarterly basis to represent the general student body at Executive Management, Senate and Council.

In another key decision and significant step forward affecting student governance, the Council also approved amendments the constitution of the Student Representative Council (SRC) of the main campus. These amendments were the results of deliberations of student organizations, the SRC and the Student Parliament of the UFS main campus.

The amendments to the constitution of the main campus SRC determines that nine of the 18 SRC members must be elected by means of proportional representation and nine on the basis of an individual, first-past-the-post election.

This decision comes in the wake of calls by certain student organizations on main campus for proportional representation to be included as a means of electing student representatives.

The following portfolios of the main campus SRC will be contested by individual candidates on the basis of first past the post:

president
secretary
academic affairs
legal and constitutional affairs
student development
arts and culture
men’s internal liaison
ladies internal liaison
media, marketing and liaison

The following nine portfolios will be contested by affiliated organizations on a proportional representation basis.

two vice-presidents
treasurerdialogue and associations
transformation
campus affairs and recreation
sport
international affairs
community service

It also is a breakthrough to have all constitutional changes processed and approved at the June meeting of the Council, with all relevant student organizations having been part of the process and accepting the outcome of the process.

According to the chairperson of the UFS Council, Judge Faan Hancke, today’s unanimous decisions on student governance are an indication of how all UFS stakeholders represented in Council are committed to finding win-win solutions in the interest of the university.

“Once again the UFS has reached another milestone in its transformation and has shown the rest of the country that we are pioneers in the field of reaching intelligent solutions to complex situations,” Judge Hancke said.

According to Dr Moraka, the central SRC constitution will come into effect from the start of the second semester this year.

MEDIA RELEASE

Issued by: Lacea Loader
    Media Representative
    Tel: (051) 401-2584
    Cell: 083 645 2454
     E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za

10 June 2005

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