The recent declaration by President Cyril Ramaphosa to talk about the thorny topic of land expropriation to avoid panic has been well received by many.

This assures the nation that the land issue will finally be resolved. SA took a bold step to accelerate the transfer of land from the white minority population as a result of parliament backing the will of the people to change section 25 of the constitution to allow land expropriation without compensation.

More has been done behind closed doors to address racial ownership disparities in land ownership. On the other hand, the government is hoping to establish a Land Court, which will deal with issues of land expropriation and other existing bottlenecks, which have severely hampered the land redistribution process.

The president also talked about the implementation of the Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Act to commence in April, in recognition of the status of the Khoisan communities. Even though the land question is taking time to resolve, I want to applaud those little steps that the Ramaphosa administration is taking.

The country’s historical and highly skewed distribution of land is a source of inequality and social fragility and the people cannot wait any longer.

I, therefore, urge all different sectors of government including the judiciary, human rights commission, the business sector and our farming community to work together to enable the laws passed by parliament to really assist in making sure that there is social cohesion, peace and harmony in dealing with the land issue.

Rankepile Khomo, Duduza