Zuma vows to speed up land reform

South African President Jacob Zuma vowed on Friday to speed up a land reform so as to help black people to get their land back.

Since 1994 when apartheid was brought to an end, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform through the redistribution program has transferred 4.7 million hectares of land, Zuma said in his annual address to the National Council of Provinces in East London, Eastern Cape Province.

This is made up of 5,281 projects amounting to 12 billion rand (about 857 million US dollars).

More than 120,000 households have benefitted from the redistribution, according to Zuma.

In addition to the above, the Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights has transferred more than 1,9 million hectares to restitution beneficiaries since 1994, said Zuma.

The program continues to be implemented and government will continue to process land claims and assist communities to get their land back, he pledged.

The government continues to look for ways of speeding up the process and also to support those who have re-gained the land to use it profitably, Zuma said.

Zuma also pointed to a racial incident to stress the need to speed up the land reform.

In the incident, Victor Mlotshwa, a black man in his 20s, was forced into a coffin and threatened with being burned alive by two white men who accused the black man of trespassing on a ranch.

The incident was captured on video. The footage was shot on August 17, but has only recently surfaced, sparking outrage and condemnation.

Zuma said this matter has also brought into sharper focus the question of access to land by black people.

The South African government has been criticized for failing on its ambitious land reform target of transferring 30 percent of white-owned land to black farmers by 2014.

This was a promised made by the ruling African National Congress when it took power in 1994. Enditem