Pretoria - The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform has welcomed the approval of the report by Cabinet on the Audit of Registered State Land and desktop analysis of private land ownership in the country.
Ministerial spokesperson Mtobeli Mxotwa said the purpose of the exercise was to determine first how much land is owned by the state, what it is used for and who the occupants/users are and what buildings and improvements exist on it.
This will be used to enhance the integrity of the land register which would serve as the basis for the enhanced land planning and administration, including other functions relating to property portfolio management as well as improved delivery of services.
Mxotwa said the physical inspection and verification of 1.15 million registered state land parcels commenced in mid-September 2011 and was finalised in November 2012.
In December 2012, he said after the analysis of captured data, they discovered that there was insufficient data on 110 000 field forms and therefore revisited 110 000 land parcels.
He said the exercise was completed in March 2013.
Out of the collected and analysed information, the report reveals the users of state land; government departments, municipalities, private individuals, organisations, state owned enterprises and what it is used for, from agriculture, residential to conservation among others. The finding is that the state owns 14% (17 061 882 ha).
Parallel to this exercise desktop analysis of private land ownership was conducted.
“We were hoping to achieve the following distribution from this exercise; gender, race, nationality/citizenship, percentage share - where an individual owns a land as a result of company and ownership, trusts, marital status, living status.
“We could only achieve distribution per the following categories; private individuals (natural persons), companies (close corporations, Pty Ltd) excluding state companies, trust as registered by the master of the high court and private organisation – churches. The report will reveal that the privately owned land constitutes 79% (96 550 791 ha),” he said.
According to Mxotwa, there is 7% which is unaccounted for and this includes areas such as former Transkei which was not surveyed and registered, parts of Limpopo including North of Kruger National Park which was also not surveyed and registered and some miss-matched data from the Deeds office.
He said a further exercise to deal with 7% is underway including surveying of state domestic facilities.
“Over 3 million hectares in Eastern Cape (former Transkei and Ciskei) have been surveyed not yet registered and over 1 million hectares in Limpopo (including Kruger National Park) are soon to be registered.
“It must be noted that it is for the first time this kind of exercise is conducted in South Africa, we now have baseline information on land ownership,” he said.
The information will be used to enhance the integrity of land register, which will serve as the basis for land planning and administration, and also assist in the road map as stipulated on the National Development Plan (NDP). - SAnews.gov.za
