WeeklySA_AdminEQUITY: Urgent laws to redress historical inequalities subjected to unnecessary delays as the ruling party displayed ‘lack of political will’…
By By Sandile Swana
We must accept that the white liberals and the racist rightwing do not want immediate full equality between whites and blacks in South Africa in education, health, public services, land and property ownership, judging by the results on the ground.
Asset and wealth inequality is reproduced with unerring accuracy across generations between blacks and whites in South Africa, reinforcing economic apartheid.
That is automated, in the USA and the UK there is no equality between blacks and whites, and, in fact in Canada, Australia and New Zealand there is no equality nor equity between the natives and the white European settlers. The privileged always protect privilege across centuries, through social and economic systems even beyond legislation.
The DA has declared a dispute in terms of clauses 18 and 19 of the GNU statement of intent with the ANC and the state president over the Expropriation Act, National Health Insurance (NHI) and BELA Bill. The ANC, DA and Afrikaner Broederbond have been soaked in the land redistribution debate at least since 1990, yet they raise arguments that could only come from newbies.
The Green Paper on the NHI was issued in 2011. NHI pilot projects were conducted from 2012 and the White Paper was issued in 2015, intense consultation followed until both houses of parliament approved the NHI Bill in December 2023, and Ramaphosa sat with his pen rather than sign it immediately.
After 12 years of lawful consultation and voting in Parliament, still the white settler community is not satisfied with the NHI. If the matter went back to parliament, the ANC, EFF, Rise Mzansi, UDM, ATM, PAC, MKP and their allies will still carry the vote, the DA has no credible mechanism for overriding both houses of parliament.
They are hijacking the tardy Ramaphosa who, in any event, had no proper grounds to delay the signature. Ramaphosa signed the NHI on May 15 2024.
The provision of free high-quality healthcare for all South Africans, regardless of income or race, was long overdue in 1994 and also is catered for in Section 27 of our constitution.
All high quality systems, such as NHI, require innovation, experimentation, extreme hard-work and cooperation to work. The DA and the ANC must work together and deliver high quality health care for all South Africans everywhere, immediately.
The grandstanding extends the period of human suffering in RSA. The South African Reserve Bank needs to financially intervene together with PIC to make sure that the health system has the correct professionals, managers and infrastructure to deliver on its mandate within a short-space of time.
The Expropriation Act is another unnecessary and alarmist point of dispute by the DA and its racist rightwing supporters.
Many academics, agricultural economists and market commentators have advised that there is nothing to worry about and that the Expropriation Act agrees with the constitution, yet the DA wants another political bioscope to show the supporters of white privilege that it is fighting for their privilege.
In the last resort, a court will have to certify any price for any land that is expropriated if the owner disputes the price the state wants to pay.
Again, the ANC and Ramaphosa have been very slow, once we accept that in 1994 land redistribution for redress and to create a fast growing democratic economy was long overdue.
On June 30 1991, former president FW de Klerk, showed serious intent of redress and land redistribution when he signed “The Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act 108 of 1991” into law.
That law erased in the legal system about 51 land related laws, but it needed the ANC, DP, IFP, NP and many others to immediately follow through with speed and with one voice to enforce the economic and social implications of that Act. That was not done for lack of political will.
In the 1990s, some people were actively campaigning and creating the frameworks for land redistributions, suffice to say there was a Land Summit in 2005 and there was 10-year progress evaluation in parliament – Agriculture and Land Portfolio Committee, November 17 2004, with some key recommendations:
All role-players from the public and private sector should get involved in the land reform process in the country:
· There was a need to challenge organised agriculture and private land-owners to support land reform by transferring portions of their land to farm dwellers;
· Land reform must be managed in a positive way as a necessity and integral element of national reconciliation;
· There was a need to review and assess the current market-based approach to land reform;
· Parliamentarians and civil servants noticed that there was over-inflation of prices of land by white farmers, the spirit of reconciliation was not observed, and expropriation of redress and redistribution was already under discussion.
The Land Summit (July 2005) was duly convened and all white South Africans and stakeholders contributed.
One of the resolutions of the Land Summit was that: “All participants renewed their commitment to ensuring the redistribution of at least 30% of white owned agricultural land by the year 2014 – the end of the second decade of democracy”.
