PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma on Thursday revealed for the first time that the Zuma family would be lodging land claims even as he urged traditional leaders to “get organised” and take advantage of the reopened window for land claims to be made.

Addressing the opening of the National House of Traditional Leaders, he provided no details of the claims his family would make.

It was reported last year that Mr Zuma’s nephew, Inkosi Simpiwe Zuma, had launched a land claim targeting more than 60 farms in Impendle in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. On Thursday the president issued a stern warning that the new deadline for land claims in 2019 would pass very quickly if there was a failure to get organised.

Government recently reopened the issue of land claims and opened the process to Khoi and San people for the first time.

Departing from his prepared text, Mr Zuma said that part of getting organised should be that traditional leaders co-operate and hire a common pool of lawyers who would research and process all land claims. This would help those poor people who could not afford legal representation to get expert legal advice. The president said there was still some time before the 2019 expiry date and it should be used to get organised.

He said: “If we want to eradicate poverty one of the critical requirements is access to land. In his opening address to the ANC (African National Congress) conference on the 14th of December 1941, the former president of the ANC, Dr AB Xuma, reminds us of the importance of land.

“He said the fundamental basis of all wealth and power is the ownership and acquisition of freehold title to land.

“From land we derive our existence. We derive our wealth in minerals, food, and other essentials. On land we build our homes. Without land we cannot exist. To all men of whatever race or colour land, therefore, is essential for their wealth, prosperity, and health.”

Mr Zuma reminded the assembled traditional leaders that government had developed the communal land tenure policy which aims to address a number of “critical challenges”.

He said the policy emerged from the Land Tenure Summit Process in September last year.

“It has now evolved into the Communal Land Bill which is expected in Cabinet during the year. The policy aims to clarify, strengthen and formalise the land rights of Communal Area residents — especially the vulnerable —-through the introduction of institutionalised land use rights to be held by households.”

Mr Zuma said that this intervention would enable household members to have clear rights on land allocated to them, would enable their children to inherit the land, use land rights as collateral to access credit, enter into investment partnerships, and play an active role in how land is distributed, used and allocated to investors.

“In this way the lives of thousands of our people who live in communal lands will change for the better as they will be able to use the land allocated to them as an economic resource.”

http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/03/06/zuma-reveals-family-to-lodge-land-claims