News
Getting beyond our fascination with corruption to focus on policies and laws that re-entrench structural inequality | November 2018
What is the TKLB?
The TKLB builds on previous bills such as the Communal Land Rights Bill of 2003, and the Traditional Courts Bill (TCB) of 2008 to re-entrench the power of traditional leaders throughout the former homelands. It gives traditional leaders and councils sole decision-making authority over the 17 million South Africans living within the tribal boundaries that make up the former homelands. These tribal boundaries were re-imposed by the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act (TLGFA) of 2003.
Under the land that belongs to the Bakgatla Ba Kgafela lie the richest platinum deposits on earth. But a toxic alliance between government, traditional chieftaincy and major mining houses has stood between the community and its wealth. Could this be the largest state-sanctioned, business perpetrated fraud in the history of Big Mining in South Africa?
The debate about Expropriation without Compensation ignores threats to the property rights of the rural poor contained in bills before Parliament
The Nelson Mandela Foundation in collaboration with the Land & Accountability Research Centre (LARC) Plexus films and the Hanns Seidel Foundation had a round table and screening of “This Land”. Robust discussions at both events ensued centring on the future of land reform in South Africa, reflecting on the Constitutional Review Process and engaging with examples of dispossession and lack of accountability linked to the Traditional Khoi-San Leadership Bill and the Traditional Leadership Governance Framework Amendment Bill amendments before Parliament.
LARC land researcher, Ms. Nokwanda Sihlali, recently attended the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform's (DRDLR) "Land is our Heritage" event, held at the Birchwood Hotel, Johannesburg from 19 - 21 September 2018.