Every day since Pres Ramaphosa was elected into office we have searched out South African land-related news which is curated on our website knowledgebase.land. This publication provides a brief summary of land news across a range of categories for March 2020
As COVID-19 spreads around the globe, fears of a deep global recession are mounting. Some also fear that food supplies may start running short, especially if supply chains are disrupted. Others fear that agricultural production may be disrupted by containment measures that restrict workers from harvesting and handling crops.
Zimbabwe has announced a price freeze on goods and services and ordered businesses to instead revert to prices obtained on 25 March 2020, just before the country went into a nationwide lockdown.
In February 2018, South Africa’s National Assembly passed a resolution to establish an ad hoc Constitutional Review Committee to explore and debate the need for a constitutional amendment to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation in the public interest.
Issues surrounding labour tenancy in South Africa are controversial and complex. The issue is controversial in that that it currently reflects a struggle over access to land and tenure security that spans more than a century. The controversy surrounding labour tenancy derives from the fact that the role players within this scenario often hold widely differentiated perceptions about each other’s rights, duties and respective power relationships.
Issues surrounding labour tenancy in South Africa are controversial and complex. The issue is controversial in that that it currently reflects a struggle over access to land and tenure security that spans more than a century. The controversy surrounding labour tenancy derives from the fact that the role players within this scenario often hold widely differentiated perceptions about each other’s rights, duties and respective power relationships.
Various multilateral organisations, for instance the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organisation have been at the forefront of the different programmes designed to enhance tenure security of landholders as the basis for long-term agricultural development. This has been the case especially in parts of the world where customary systems of tenure are predominant. Wily argues that ‘so little of sub-Saharan Africa is subject to formal entitlements as legally recognised private properties’.
