The reopening of land claims is just about the worst news the agricultural sector could have. 37 000 Commercial farmers are still reeling from the way the 79 000 land claims which were filed before 1998 were implemented, and are certainly not ready to face the estimated 400 000 more which the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform expects to be filed when the process will be reopened. Of the previous round, some 8 000 claims have not been addressed. That does not mean that claims have been made to 8 000 farms. In fact, one claim can affect 715 farms, as is the case in Magoebaskloof, or 665 farms like in the Hoedspruit claim.
It also does not mean that the remaining 71 000 claims have been finalised. In the case of the Magoebaskloof land claim, government bought and transferred 42 of the 715 farms, and the rest of the farms are still in the freezer box of uncertainty. No farm has been unlisted yet, and the claimants have an expectation to get those farms too, although they had listed only 6 farms on the original claim form in 1998.
The rest were added by incompetent and corrupt land officials, under the wide discretion the act bestows on the land claims commissioner. Tens of thousands of farms are caught up in this state of unresolved claims, and there is no indication when or how they will be finalised.
There are serious questions to be asked about the number of outstanding claims too. The department reported to parliament in 2000 that it had received 63 000 claims, and that number had grown annually ever since. Up to this day none of the numerous requests of Agri-SA to have a complete list of claims and the farms which are involved, could yield any response but a promise that the list would be made available as soon as it is compiled.
As soon as a claim is gazetted on a farm, the owner is forced to halt all further development or investment on the land. No owner in his right state of mind will invest on land if he is not certain that he will get his money back when his number comes up for land reform. This crisis has been perpetuated by the scrapping of the willing seller principle, the new Expropriation Bill, and government's commitment to use it more aggressively as it no longer intends to pay market related prices in land reform.
A number of recent events have put a damper on agricultural investment lately. At an investment conference in November in Hanover, Germany, European agricultural businesses lashed the South African governments' unilateral cancellation of its investment treaty earlier that month. They referred to proposals by the DRDLR to expropriate foreign held property, and exchange it for long term lease agreements. They lamented the disbandment of the SADC Tribunal, which adjudicated mostly on property right cases in the region, and linked that to the scrapping of the willing seller principle. They clearly fear that their investments are not safe in South Africa, and are taking precautionary steps to mitigate their risk.