Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso says the high cost of land continues to be one of the stumbling blocks to the pace of land restitution.

The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights reflected on 30 years of the Restitution of Land Rights Act at the Freedom Park Heritage Site in Pretoria on Monday.

The Act was formed to restore land rights to individuals and communities dispossessed due to past racially discriminatory 1913 Native Land Act.

Songs and praises were the order of the day as beneficiaries from different provinces were handed their land tittle deeds after they were forcefully taken from them.

Nhyontso has encouraged people to be patient with the land claim process, as it might take years to fully resolve all the claims.

“2014 land claims which are 163 000 … it will take us seven hundred years [to resolve them]. So we also need to be creative and look at possibilities in the private sector, see how can we get funds to the settle this claims. So that our people can find joy, reclaim their land and dignity of the African people.”

Chief Land Claims Commissioner Nomfundo Ntloko says they have processed 90% of the 80.000 land claims received since the cut off date of 1998.

“We have about 5000 claims that are still outstanding but not just looking at the numbers, it’s important for us to actually just look at what we will be able to achieve. We’ve got about 3,8 million hectares of land that we’ve acquired under the restitution programme,” says Ntloko.

“We’ve spent over R59 billion overall on financial compensation or land restoration for those communities that were able to get the land back. Today, we want to ask the question on what have we done successfully.”

Title deed recipients says white farmers are given first priority.

“The process is very slow. It is giving the perpetrators of our land (sic) the number one priority instead of us being given that priority. We feel that we are not taken care of by our own government. We voted for a government that is not taking care of us,” says one of the deed recipient.

“It was not easy because it has started in 1998, and we’ve only received just one farm last year [in] 2023 October, almost 26 years fighting for one farm. We are remain with 12. So, it’s a long process,” says another.

Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi believes that the numbers do not reflect what is on the ground.

“There are just two areas where statistics can mask reality, and they could be misleading. If you ask the government how many claims have you settled. People think 80% of land has been settled, but when you dig deeper, what you realize is that 90% of those claims that have been settled is through cash compensation. So, the underlying problem of land injustice has not been resolved. It’s been postponed,” explains Ngcukaitobi.

With some 5,000 claims still outstanding, the department has vowed to settle at least 300 land claims in the 2024/25 financial year.-Reporting by Lerato Makola