Cape Town - The announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa that the ANC would support an amendment to the Constitution, and specifically to the property clause, may have come as a surprise for many South Africans.
Professor Ruth Hall, from the University of the Western Cape’s Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), said: “I think that what this really shows is that the ANC has been forced to listen to ordinary South Africans across the country who have attended public hearings and who have said, 'We want land and we feel the government has not listened to us'.
“People have blamed the Constitution for the government's inaction over the land issue. I think we're going to head into a new phase now where government is going to forced to take the land issue much more seriously.
“UWC has been doing research on land issues for more than 20 years now and has been supporting research and field-based evidence to try and inform the land issue. The University will continue to do that and I think that what we are going to have in the next while is a very constructive discussion, about the role of universities in taking forward the land issue."
Professor Hall will deliver a public lecture on the national land debate on Thursday afternoon at 12h30.
The lecture will feature UWC’s Student Representative Council (SRC) President Lumkile Thomas, and SRC Secretary, Lukhanyo Daweti, as the respondents.
Thomas said: “The land was taken from our forefathers without compensation, so it is only fair that the land is given back to its rightful owners without compensation.”
He explains that proper mechanisms should be put in place for people to retain the land and not sell the land back to the “oppressors”.