Land use and productivity came under the spotlight when the KwaZulu-Natal government and Amakhosi convened a Land Governance Summit, aimed at unlocking future economic growth.
The two-day summit, which is currently underway at the Durban Olive Convention Centre, aims to find innovative solutions for equitable and productive use of land to facilitate the development of communities.
The summit mobilises land administration and management role players in the public sector, including the private sector and civil society, for a collective review and improvement of land administration and management efficiencies in the province.
The administration and land use management role players will determine whether the province of KwaZulu-Natal can successfully reverse the apartheid spatial settlement patterns, and address poverty in rural areas.
Addressing delegates on the first day of the summit on Tuesday, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala noted that the province has rural areas where people live far away from government services.
“These communities often find themselves in areas that are inaccessible and have not been thoroughly surveyed and thus do not comply with the relevant land regulations, which is partly due to the injustices of apartheid ,which saw millions of Africans abandoned in inhospitable areas.
“Through this summit, we aim to promote integration and collaboration amongst role players in land governance, which will assist us in dealing with the injustices of the past,” Zikalala said.
He called for the full implementation of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act (SPLUMA), which provides a framework for spatial planning and land use management in the country.
According to Zikalala, through the proper implementation of spatial planning laws, the KZN Provincial Government will ensure that the province has a credible system to determine population density within specific areas and avoid the haphazard placement of people in parcels of land that are not surveyed.
“This will also result in enhanced credibility of any budget allocation made by government towards development based on population size,” the Premier said.
KZN Provincial House of Traditional Leadership chairperson, Inkosi Chiliza, presented a position paper drafted by Amakhosi, which will be discussed on day two of the summit.
Chiliza said the institution of traditional leadership has an important role to play in the administration of land and the implementation of measures that will ensure that proper governance of land takes place for the benefit of communities.
The summit is held under the theme, ‘Towards efficient land administration for the rapid release of priority development land, integrated land use management and unified tenure management, compliance and enforcement services accessible at one-stop land development offices in the districts’.
Source: South African Government News Agency