South African president pushes ahead with controversial land bill

Foreigners will be barred from owning land in South Africa and no individual will be able to own more than 12,000 hectares, the equivalent of two farms, under legislation currently in the works, President Jacob Zuma said on Saturday. Under the new Land Holdings Bill, announced this week in a State of the Nation address, Zuma said foreign individuals and companies would be restricted to long-term leases of between 30 and 50 years. If any South Africans owned more than 12,000 hectares, the excess would be liable for seizure by the state, Zuma said, in comments that are likely to upset the large – and still predominantly white-owned – commercial farming sector.

While the percentage of foreign ownership is low, the calibre of ownership is exactly what we need in this country. What we are effectively saying to them is they’re not welcome here.

Lew Geffen of Sotheby’s International Realty

The highly sensitive dossier evokes the spectre of the land reform programme in neighbouring Zimbabwe in the early 2000s when hundreds of white farmers were violently evicted from their land. The government last year relaunched a claims process for black families removed from their land under apartheid rule to apply for compensation. Observers say Zuma’s aim is to steal thunder from his most vocal adversary, radical populist Julius Malema, who has advocated outright expropriations without compensating ejected farmers.

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