You have no right to own land if you're black and rural

Powerful lobby groups regularly sound alarm bells when the torpid rate of land reform fleetingly raises the possibility of land expropriation and, with it, the spectre of the violation of white farmers' property rights.

In reality, it is black, rural, poor South Africans who are already being deprived of the right to own property, even communally. In this year, the centenary year of the infamous 1913 Land Act, people's land rights continue to be violated only because they are black and rural.

Therefore, black, rural South Africans are not only being threatened with the revocation of their democratic rights as citizens, through legislation such as the Traditional Courts Bill, but also the deprivation of the right to land ownership, which their urban counterparts, irrespective of race, enjoy.This is possible due to the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act of 2003 and the Community Land Rights Act (CLaRA) of 2004. In 2010, the Constitutional Court declared CLaRA invalid due to lack of public consultation but without addressing the applicants' argument that the act denies secure tenure to the 16 million people living in the former Bantustans.

Editor's Comment
Inspect the voters' roll!

The recent disclosure by the IEC that 2,513 registrations have been turned down due to various irregularities should prompt all Batswana to meticulously review the voters' rolls and address concerns about rejected registrations.The disparities flagged by the IEC are troubling and emphasise the significance of rigorous voter registration processes.Out of the rejected registrations, 29 individuals were disqualified due to non-existent Omang...

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