The provision of full ownership rights to Soweto households as a government service delivery priority in the new dispensation

Abstract

Land is a finite resource for sustainable livelihoods of the general population and the foundation of South Africa’s diverse culture. However, throughout our South African history, the land question has been a contentious, sensitive and emotive issue ever since the inception of the colonial era, thus the democratic dispensation views the Land Reform Programme as a panacea to the historical inequalities with regard to land ownership, distribution and forced removals, as well as viewing it as a tool to achieve socio-economic and political stability. Since globally, land reform arose mainly because of inequalities of resources or to control resources,the overall view in South Africa is that land ownership can be optimally utilised for redistribution, reform, effective administration and for developmental purposes; and, as a result, change in land ownership, use and control has become imperative. This study seeks to evaluate the democratic government’s intervention and the efficacy of the urban tenure reform programme in dealing with unequal and racial ownership of urban land in the old(pre 1994) former Black urban settlements such SOWETO, by investigating legislation and policy related to land ownership, and the current tenure and ownership system and status in both Zola and Orlando.Document analysis is a form of qualitative research used by the researcher to provide voice and meaning around an assessed researched topic, and findings further reveal the challenges faced in the implementation or execution phaseof the urban tenure remedial programme, and the current status and the remedial programme benefits, while recommendations are made in terms of systems and processes in order to accelerate service delivery, and with the emphasis of the importance of capacity building for stakeholders, including the benefiting community. misperception that the Land Reform Programme only relates to the “rural” areas and “the transfer of agricultural land from dissertation investigates the evolution of land tenure or ownership rights in the former black urban human settlements, looking at the discriminatory laws and policies of the past, consequent political resistance and other milestones as well as the democratic government’s interventions in this regard whites to ...