Chapter 4 Learning from experience: An overview of the evidence: Reviewing Restitution, LRAD and Commonage from a SIS perspective
3 Restitution
3.6 The findings of overview studies
3.6.2 Land Restitution in South Africa: Our achievements and challenges
This report (CRLR 2003) presented the Commission's perspective on the extent to which it was fulfilling its mandate.

The report states that the Commission had ‘delivered more than 590 000 hectares of land, most of which is agricultural and conservation land'. It noted that the recommendations from the 1998 Ministerial Review had been implemented with positive results. These included the determination of a six-phase restitution project cycle to systematise the claim settlement process (Figure 4.2).

The Restitution project cycle



The CRLR's role in development planning and PSS

The report highlights the CRLR's development responsibilities in respect of settled claims:

The Commission is required to implement the restitution awards of the Land Claims Court and the Minister in terms of the Act. Inherently this means that the Commission has a duty to facilitate development planning. It is in the interest of the Commission to ensure qualitative and sustainable settlement of land claims and thus provides post settlement support to claimants (CRLR 2003:6).



Key challenges identified in rural community claims

The report also highlights a number of unique social and institutional challenges with respect to the settlement of rural community claims. Challenges identified include (CRLR 2003:4–5):

  • high levels of illiteracy among rural claimant communities;
  • many claimants lack identity documents, death certificates or records of marriage which makes validation processes more complex;
  • distance and communication problems create difficulties in bringing scattered claimants together to make decisions;
  • the patriarchal nature of rural society;
  • unregistered and unsurveyed land in former homeland areas which creates difficulties for identification of land parcels and archival research; and
  • difficulties/complexities in calculating material value of land under claim.

The report also highlights a range of development constraints facing owners taking transfer of agricultural land including lack of technical, business, organisational and development planning skills and lack of access to development finance and related financial management skills.

Conclusions

The report (CRLR 2003) notes the many difficulties and complexities associated with the Restitution mandate:

We have had to contend with impossible claimants, current land owners[sic], disputes, development challenges, administrative bottlenecks, capacity issues, public expectations, the shear [sic] size of the task.



While the report restates the commitment of the CRLR to meet its 2005 deadline, it does not provide detail on what can be done to make the settlement of rural claims go any faster within the claim settlement project cycle set out above.