Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 1st March 2011
South Africa hints at foreign ownership ban
South African President, Jacob Zuma, has given his strongest indication yet that his government is considering a ban on property ownership by foreign nationals.
“Land reform will now be based on the deracialization of the rural economy,” Zuma told a rally in the northern town of Polokwane yesterday.
“In order to have more land available for reform and restitution, the government is looking at three forms of land holding…These are state land, which can only be leasehold, limited freehold on private land and land leases for foreigners, though ownership will revert to South Africans”, he said.
The government is currently pursuing a land redistribution policy which aims to compensate black South Africans for the seizure of their property under white-minority rule, which ended in 1994.
In 2006, a government-appointed panel recommended that property sales to foreigners be suspended until new laws were drafted to ensure more black South Africans were able to buy homes.
However, the measure was never implemented after the property industry successfully lobbied against it, persuading the authorities that such a measure would be detrimental to the economy.
Zuma believes that black South Africans need a bigger stake in Africa’s largest economy as too many people have remained marginalized 17 years after the end of apartheid.
Ninety-one percent of South Africa’s 50 million people are black, of mixed race or of Asian descent. In 2009, medium per- capita expenditure for black South Africans was 452 rand, while for whites it was 5,750 rand, according to government data.
The unemployment rate currently stands at 25.3%.
Zuma won political control of South Africa’s governing party, the ANC, in 2007 and with elections coming up he is currently under pressure to address income disparities. Foreign property ownership appears to be an easy target.
Source: Global edge
User Comments
"Ban on property ownership by foreign nationals..."
We always have to hear this sort of rubbish from South African government when we get near an election!
They talk without thinking and then when the damage is done back track - it's the same usual cheap populist political rhetoric to make their support base jump up and down with glee!
We already have more foreigners SELLING than BUYING!
Andre de Villiers,
Devler Estates