Monday, August 14, 2017

Why title deeds aren't the solution to South Africa's land tenure problem



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Nearly 60% of all South Africans, live on land or in dwellings outside of the land titling system.
Filckr/Icrisat





The conventional view is that insecurity of land tenure results from the lack of a registered title deed which records the property rights of occupants of land or housing. Across Africa, many governments and international development agencies are promoting large-scale land titling as the solution.

In the South African context, some commentators suggest that a key legacy of the apartheid past is the continued tenure insecurity of the third of the population who live in “communal areas”, under unelected chiefs or of traditional councils. The remedy, they suggest, is simple: extend the system of title deeds to all South Africans.

We have just published a book which disputes this view. Untitled. Securing land tenure in urban and rural South Africa contains case studies of a wide range of land tenure systems found in different parts of the country. These include informal settlements, inner city buildings in Johannesburg, “deep rural” communal systems, land reform projects, and examples of systems of freehold rights held by black South Africans since the 19th century.

With the exception of systems of freehold rights, most people who occupy land or dwellings in these areas are “untitled”, and occupy land or dwellings under a very different kind of property regime. We term these social or off-register tenures.

But we argue that, fundamentally, South Africans need to question the assumption that the sole solution to the problem of tenure insecurity is a system of title deeds. Alternative approaches are needed, which we set out to explore.

Social tenures


The book offers an analysis of social tenures, which are regulated by a different logic and set of norms than those underpinning private property. Such tenures are diverse but share some key features. As is the case across the developing world, including Africa, land tenure is directly embedded in social identities and relations.

Rights are often shared and overlapping in character and generally derive from accepted membership of a community or kinship group. Processes of land allocation and dispute resolution are overseen by local institutional structures.

In these contexts, decisions are often informed by norms and values that stress the importance of reciprocal social relationships rather than buying power as the basis for land allocation. They involve flexible processes of asserting, negotiating and defending land rights, rather than the enforcement of legally defined rules.

It’s estimated that in 2011 some 1.5 million people lived in low-cost dwellings provided to the poor by government’s, so-called “Reconstruction and Development Programme” (RDP) houses, with inaccurate or outdated titles, in most cases due to transfers outside of the formal system.

Another 5 million lived in RDP houses where no titles had yet been issued due to systemic inefficiencies. Along with 1.9 million people in backyard shacks, 2 million on commercial farms, and 17 million in communal areas, this means that in that year around 30 million people, nearly 60% of all South Africans, lived on land or in dwellings held outside of the land titling system.





RDP housing.
Flickr



The edifice of title deeds


The book contrasts social tenures with the conventional system of title deeds, which constitutes a key element of an imposing “edifice”. The current system of rates, services and processes of development assumes that land tenure equals a surveyed plot with a singular registered owner, which may be persons or corporate bodies.

The system is serviced by a Deeds Registry, private sector surveyors and conveyancers, as well as municipal officials, all governed by a range of laws and regulations in a complex and interlocking manner.

One key problem facing those in social tenures is the discrimination they suffer at the hands of the state and the private sector. Despite some protection under laws such as the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act of 1996, people living in social tenures are severely disadvantaged. They may have to go to court to have their rights legally enforced, but most cannot afford to do so.

Development and land use planning, public investment and service delivery are constrained under these systems of tenure. Elite capture or abuse by unaccountable leaders can also take place, as in communal areas where minerals are found and chiefs and councils enter into business deals with mining companies that benefit only a few.

Titling enthusiasts argue that another problem with social tenures is the fact that banks do not accept untitled land or dwellings as security for bank loans. This constrains the poor from borrowing capital to invest in businesses of their own. But research indicates that few of the poor are willing to risk their homes in this way, since small enterprises often fail.

Tenure reform policy options


How then to proceed with pro-poor tenure reform? Our research indicates that it is not realistic to extend land titling to all; the system may be at breaking point, and is inadequate even for the emerging middle class.

Another option is to adapt elements of the edifice to provide a degree of official and legal recognition of rights within social tenures. Lawyers and planners working with communities and officials have developed a range of innovative practices, concepts and instruments aimed at securing such rights in an incremental manner. This includes special land use zones, recognising occupation rights in informal settlements, and recording rights using locally accepted forms of evidence.

A third option is a more radical overhaul of land tenure, leading to systematic recognition of and large scale support for social tenures. This would involve stronger laws protecting rights holders, an adjudication system that allows new forms of evidence to be considered in determining who holds rights, and new institutions for negotiating, recording and registering rights under social tenures. The system could include the office of a Land Rights Protector.

We believe that these alternatives all pose their own challenges. But we also believe that pursuing alternatives to a system of title deeds is not an impossible task.

The ConversationThe book was co-authored with Dona Hornby, a post-doctoral student at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape; Rosalie Kingwill, at the institute and Lauren Royston, a researcher at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute.

Ben Cousins, Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

What's happening inside the ANC, not parliament, is key to why Zuma prevails



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Supporters of President Jacob Zuma reacting to the vote of no confidence proceedings in parliament.
Reuters/Rogan Ward




What matters inside the African National Congress, the party that governs South Africa, is not necessarily what matters outside it. This obvious point is missed by much of the commentary on the latest unsuccessful motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma – and in much discussion of South African politics.

One result of ignoring this reality is the claim that the vote seriously weakened Zuma because several dozen ANC members of parliament supported the motion or abstained.

This was the first time some ANC MPs supported a motion of no confidence in an ANC president. But, while Zuma came within 21 votes of losing in parliament, he was probably backed by 80% or more of the ANC caucus. Most of the votes against him were cast by opposition MPs, who do not have a say in who is ANC president, not ANC members, who do.

Unless parliament passes a motion of no confidence in him, which is not on the cards any time soon, his future depends on whether he was weakened in the ANC, not parliament.

Within the ANC, Zuma’s future is not the absorbing fixation it is outside it.

Loyalty amid factionalism


For many outside the ANC, politicians are defined by whether they want Zuma to go. Inside it, the key reality is a battle between two factions: Zuma’s is accused by its opponents, whose likeliest presidential candidate is deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, of using public office to advance private interests. While Zuma is supported by one and opposed by the other, both know he does not shape what the ANC and government do on his own – he acts as part of a faction. If he goes and the faction wins, nothing changes and so for both sides, winning the factional battle is far more important than Zuma’s fate.

The contest is centred on winning the leadership elections at the ANC’s December national elective conference. What both sides do, they do with that in mind – Zuma’s fate is a product of this battle.

Key figures in the factions also want to run an ANC in good shape to win the next election and so they worry about splitting or damaging the organisation. If doing what matters to people outside the ANC risks harming it, they will not do it.

There is no evidence yet that the vote weakened Zuma’s faction. Because the vote was secret, we don’t know which MPs voted for him to go. But common sense suggests that they are not pro-Zuma faction members who changed sides but staunch members of the group which wants him gone. So the anti-Zuma group has not grown because some of its members expressed themselves more forcefully.

Nor does it show that the tide within the ANC is moving against Zuma. What matters inside the ANC, but not outside it, is loyalty to the organisation. For many years it was banned and under constant attack – this produced a culture in which the default position is to close ranks in the face of what it sees as outside attack. This made the dissent by ANC MPs a huge step for them. But there is no reason why their view should be shared by others – given the premium on loyalty, their decision could help the pro-Zuma faction by discrediting its opposition.

This misfit between the logic of ANC politics and that outside it explains other aspects of the no confidence vote which have caused confusion. One is that figures such as secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and chief whip Jackson Mthembu worked to get ANC MPs to defeat the motion although they oppose Zuma’s faction; the SA Communist Party, which has called on Zuma to go, did not ask its members to support the motion.

They did this not because they have switched sides but because they believed Zuma’s defeat in a no confidence vote was unlikely – and would not help them if it happened. The opposing faction would still be there, as strong as before. They might be strong enough to replace Zuma with another member of the faction, changing nothing. Or, more likely, the deadlock between the factions would tear the ANC apart and might allow the opposition to elect a president by default. So they preferred to feign loyalty and to work to take over the ANC in December.

Balance of power


This means that the overwhelming ANC caucus vote against the motion does not tell us that the faction to which Zuma belongs is winning and will control the ANC after December. Many MPs who voted against the anti-Zuma motion may be part of the faction which wants him gone: they may have voted as they did because the leaders of their faction told them that strategy made this necessary. So the balance of power in the ANC, which decided who will lead it next year, may not have been affected either way by the no confidence vote.

The ConversationWhat is happening inside the ANC may not be morally uplifting. But nor is it about foolishness or hypocrisy. It stems from decisions which are entirely logical if what matters inside the ANC matters to you. If everyone outside the ANC wants to grasp what is happening and where it might lead, they need to understand what matters inside the ANC.

Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of Johannesburg

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Zuma won, but the ANC will never be a united party again



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Supporters of South African President Jacob Zuma celebrate his triumph in the no confidence vote.
EPA/Nic Bothma



To say there is victory in defeat sounds like a contradiction in terms. But, this is exactly what happened when South Africa’s opposition parties failed to remove President Jacob Zuma through a motion of no confidence.

When National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete announced the results - 177 “Yes” against 198 “No” - ANC parliamentarians broke into song. But were they really the winners?

I don’t believe so. But to understand the party’s real defeat we need to go beyond the song.

A day before the vote the ANC was thrown into disarray by the speaker’s decision to give MPs the right to a secret ballot, something the party had vehemently opposed.

Mindful of rebellious members within the ranks of its own parliamentary caucus – such as Makhosi Khoza, Pravin Gordhan, Derek Hanekom – the ANC didn’t know how many more silent rebels it harboured in parliament.

The evening of August 7, the day before the vote, will be remembered as the night of telephonic bombardment as ANC MPs got panicky calls from both their party and opposition parties. After each call, the dilemma they faced was: “Do I listen to my conscience, or ignore it?”

The human soul expresses itself through people’s faces. A smile tells us that the soul is brimming with good nourishment. A grimace suggests a troubled person. Before 2pm on August 8, the starting time for the debate on the motion of no confidence, the tormented state of the souls of both ANC and opposition party leaders was masked by a deliberate effort to feign confidence – even though no one was certain of victory. For a few hours there was a disconnect between the soul and the face.

The rest is history. Zuma remains in office – for now. How, then, could this be interpreted as a victory for opposition parties when they were clearly trounced?

It is victory because they succeeded in proving to the ANC that party bosses in Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg, have lost control of a number of their MPs. It’s true that the ANC was divided before August the 8th. But, despite the subsequent singing, the injuries it suffered in the no confidence vote are now impossible to conceal.

The unravelling of the ANC


ANC bosses and parliamentarians no longer trust each other. Given the secrecy of the ballot, it’s impossible to sniff out all the rebels and flush them out of Parliament. It is like living with the knowledge that a dangerous snake lurks somewhere in your own house.

It is also a strong possibility that those who voted with the opposition enjoy the support of some party leaders. Given the fractiousness of the ANC, the party cannot embark on a united witch hunt against rebels in Parliament because the rebels are clearly part of an anti-Zuma campaign. It can therefore be assumed that most of them support Cyril Ramaphosa, not Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – the two frontrunner contenders for the presidency of both the ANC and the country – as the successor to Zuma. It would be self defeating for Ramaphosa to hunt them down. They are his underground troops.

Four months before the ANC’s national elective conference there is no time for the party to waste in complicated disciplinary hearings. In any event its factions are more interested in securing their own victory than chasing down those who voted in favour of the no confidence motion.

Before the vote the party could sell the propaganda that the problem was Zuma, not the ANC. By voting to keep him in the job, the party has now made it plain that the problem is the whole ANC, not just Zuma.

The bitter attitude of ANC leaders who spoke inside and outside Parliament before and after the vote added fuel to growing public anger at the arrogance of ANC power. The most shocking statement came from the ANC Women’s League president – and staunch Zuma supporter – Bathabile Dlamini who told reporters that she hadn’t voted with her conscience because her conscience had not [“sent her to parliament”]((http://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1604598/bathabile-dlamini-says-her-conscience-didnt-put-her-in-government/).

And South Africans are very angry – in taxi ranks, in churches, at funerals and in shebeens across the country. They cannot believe what has happened to the ANC of Nelson Mandela. When asked what to do, people say, “2019 is coming” – a reference to the country’s next national elections. Increasingly South Africans seem to be gaining a deeper appreciation of the power of the vote. The 2016 municipal elections, which saw the ANC lose three metropolitan councils, were a turning point.

Who’ll save the party?


Should Dlamini-Zuma, Zuma’s anointed successor, win in December, the ANC shouldn’t be surprised by the punishment meted out to them at the polls. She will be rejected overwhelmingly by citizens who are sick and tired of Zuma and the Guptas, his friends and architects of state capture.

Even Ramaphosa, her main competitor for the presidency of both the ANC and the country, will have no smooth ride to power. Indications are that, should he win, the ANC may lose voters in KwaZulu-Natal. There the Inkatha Freedom Party – which is firmly and unabashedly tribalist in its Zulu stronghold – is once again gaining groud. Even though South Africans don’t like admitting it, tribal consciousness is a feature of the country’s politics.

Should Ramaphosa succeed Zuma, he will have to do a great deal of explaining. Where was he, and what did he do, when Zuma and the Guptas were looting public resources? Why did he continue to support a discredited president? Zuma will haunt Ramaphosa like a ghost.

The ConversationIt doesn’t matter who takes over the ANC in December. The party will never be a united party again. After the vote of no confidence, the party is seriously injured. It will limp all the way to the 2019 elections. Such is the contradictory victory scored by the ANC on August 8.

Prince Mashele, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation, University of Pretoria

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Are South Africa's opposition-led coalition metros flexing their muscles?



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Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba, leads a campaign to clean up the city streets.
The Star/Itumeleng English




City governments around the world are increasingly challenging nation states when it comes to development, human rights and governance. In the US, for instance, cities are asserting themselves against federal or state governments on controversial issues like environmental standards.

Most cities are pledging to meet Paris agreement targets, even though President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the accord. On immigration, some US and UK cities are declaring themselves to be “sanctuary cities”. They are refusing to cooperate with national authorities when it comes to handing over “illegal” immigrants.

National governments often squash cities’ attempts to assert themselves. This happens especially when cities don’t have much constitutional scope to govern themselves. It also typically occurs when cities mostly depend on national government for their resources.

In South Africa, local governments enjoy significant constitutional autonomy. They have the right to run local government affairs on their “own initiative”. They also have executive and even some legislative powers to administer a whole range of functional areas. National and provincial governments may not compromise municipalities’ right to exercise these powers.

South Africa’s metropolitan governments further raise large portions of their revenue themselves. This makes them remarkably financially independent by international standards.

This means that South African municipalities could easily flex their muscles against the national and provincial tiers of government.

The surprise takeover of three metropolitan municipalities by coalitions, led by the main opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA), after local government elections last year, therefore opened up interesting possibilities.

The DA had controlled the City of Cape Town since 2011 after governing there by coalition since 2006. But all other metropolitan municipal councils in South Africa were comfortably controlled by the African National Congress (ANC), until the 2016 elections.

The ANC lost its majority in Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, as well as in two metropolitan councils in Gauteng: the national capital, Tshwane, and Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub.

Coalition metros one year on


Ongoing research I’m doing looks at what’s emerged in the first year of these three new non-ANC city governments. Unlike Cape Town, these three cities don’t have the benefit of a politically sympathetic provincial government. Their loss was also a major political humiliation for the ANC.

So some intergovernmental conflict, such as that seen in the US and elsewhere, seemed inevitable.

But my preliminary conclusion is that the coalitions aren’t showing signs of rebelliousness, at least not yet. Apart from some moves against Nelson Mandela Bay’s mayor Athol Trollip, there also hasn’t really been much push back from the ANC.

Certainly, post-election victory speeches hinted that some muscle-flexing might be on the cards. All three mayors vowed to squash corruption, increase the financial health of their cities and redirect spending to infrastructure upgrades and basic service delivery.

The mayors of Johannesburg and Tshwane also seemed to send a message that national and provincial ANC governments had to stand back.

Solly Msimanga, the mayor of Tshwane, announced that he would ban “blue light brigades” through the streets of Tshwane. He also visited Taipei on “official” city business, seemingly ignoring national government’s diplomatic agreements with mainland China, and thereby causing it embarrassment.

Herman Mashaba, the mayor of Johannesburg, threatened to withdraw Johannesburg from the South African Local Government Association. He also instructed metro police officers not to assist in enforcing the extremely unpopular e-tolls levied by the provincial government on Gauteng highway users.

But the mayors have since mostly backtracked from all this big talk. This is perhaps because most of their high profile threats involved areas of governance that fell outside of the mayors’ legal competence.

E-tolls were never within the enforcement mandate of the metro police anyway. Also, only a few blue light authorisations fell within municipal jurisdiction. And, withdrawing from the local government association would require a resolution of the entire metropolitan council, and would lead to a loss of national political influence.

This is not to say that the Metros have done nothing.

Achievements so far


Municipal economic development projects, which do fall within their powers, were significantly overhauled. For example, Mashaba squashed initiatives that were driven by the ousted ANC in Johannesburg, such as mushroom farms, solar bakeries and the “Jozi at Work” job-creation initiative.

All three cities further insisted that provincial governments pay up overdue rates and service charges. All purged “old-regime” staff implicated in corruption investigations, and all rejigged housing and service delivery structures. Johannesburg even pledged to reintegrate all municipal service delivery entities into the city.

When it finally came round to passing budgets and development plans of their own, the coalition Metros were all rather prudent. All three committed to refocused, developmental, service-focused governance free from “vanity projects”. They also promised more responsive, transparent and open governance. And all three put their money where their mouths were.

But all three also committed to constructive intergovernmental relations. Their development plans were further mostly aligned to national and provincial priorities, just like those of their predecessors.

The ConversationFor the moment, then, the Constitution’s commitment to cooperative government seems to be winning over political ambitions to chart a radically different governance path. Given the many storms brewing at national level, this local prudence is welcome, and certainly wise.

Marius Pieterse, Professor of Law, University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Come on South Africa

A deputy minister beating a woman up, a couple of white guys attacking a black couple at a KFC, a merciless attack by taxi drivers on a white motorist, almost killing him with bricks.

Those are just some of the crime incidents , not even the most serious ones.

I think it is high time that we speed up the Uncapture project.

Where are moral values ?

Where is knowing what is wrong and right ?

And more importantly, where are the people tasked with upholding the rule of law, also when the Zupta syndicate steals a R100 billion, conservative estimate, in a state capture project ?


Come on South Africa, let us stand together as one, and bring back a sense of what is wrong and what is right.


But not only to talk about it, but to actively act as a role model .
Otherwise we are doomed.  - Daniel Sutherland


Zuma783 is an African tradionalist, a tribalist, where they still believe in the Chief and King system. And then he is also a Stalinist, because he was trained in the old USSR. That is why he is such a wreckingball

 I regard this woman as positively scary. I am really not sure if there is any form of intelligence to be found here. A proud member of the Kom Raid #783 buttock brigade. It is to this kind of person that Kom Raid turns to execute his agenda. 

He turns to people who are like him, who are willing to be his zombies.

Meet your minister in charge of civil servants : Faith Muthambi.

Jabob Zuma 783 is a much worse disaster than you can ever imagine, because he is the Dumber Down-in-Chief.

He appoints mindless zombies, who in turn make appointments, people who wont challenge them. Systematically the people working in Guptament institutions are dumbed down and we are left with a useless civil service not capable of doing anything useful.



 Time for the updated handy list of fake news sites after an investigation by amaBhungane and News24 revealed that a bunch of fake news sites with the WMC narrative are being produced in India on instructions of the Guptas. Please save the image on your computer or cellphone. Thank you, much appreciated
 By Daniel Sutherland