Patricia de Lille, the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, identifies land redress as one of the primary drives to resolve spatial and socio-economic disparities and guarantee that public land is utilized for the public good.
De Lille stated, “The demand for land in our country is high, and all levels of government must work with greater urgency to implement land reform and ensure that more public land is used for the public good.”
The Minister stated in a statement that the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) has so far transferred 2,556 hectares of land (44 parcels) to the Housing Development Agency (HDA) for human settlement development.
The HDA has been granted power of attorney over certain pieces of property for the sake of development planning, according to De Lille.
In addition to releasing the 44 land pieces for human settlement, the DPWI has released an additional 17 land parcels totaling 533 hectares.
In the previous fiscal year, 15 hectares (11 land parcels) were granted for registration of servitudes for roads, water, electricity, and gas pipelines in support of infrastructure development.
De Lille stated that her government has made available for restitution 214 land properties totaling 30,277 hectares. The restitution aim for the previous year was 10,000 hectares, which was substantially exceeded.
The Minister stated that the DPWI had released 25,549 hectares of agricultural land (125 parcels) for the redistribution program.
According to De Lille, the projected release targets for this fiscal year include 7,100 hectares in various provinces for human settlement development; 180 hectares for socio-economic purposes to support Eskom and SANRAL programmes; and 154,745 hectares under land reform for restitution to support land ownership.
De Lille stated that more than 162,000 hectares were slated for distribution by the DPWI during the new fiscal year.
The department has approved the release of four parcels of land for human settlements in KwaZulu-Natal province for residents affected by the flooding earlier this year, and 1,539.3 hectares for land reform, out of the 162 000 hectares of land slated for release in the 2022/23 fiscal year.
De Lille stated that her department will continue to exert significant effort to release national State land for land reform initiatives.