Land restitution: the price of choosing money over land

Abstract

Families who had grown accustomed to living in a diverse environment comprising different ethnic groups were uprooted and removed to areas far from their familiar surroundings and the people they used to know.

Through the Land Restitution Commission, many citizens had the option of either receiving financial compensation, or negotiating with the current owners to purchase the land they had lost.

Many South Africans whose families had been forcibly removed from their homes and their land and forced into homelands, townships or other areas during apartheid, saw the transition of the country to a democratic state as an opportunity for redressing past injustices. Mokgaetji Shadung reports on a study presented at an HSRC seminar that posed the question of whether financial compensation for the loss of land had long-term benefits.