(Published - 2 August 2018)

The announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa that the ANC will support an amendment to the Constitution, and specifically to the property clause, may have come as a surprise for many South Africans. Professor Ruth Hall -  from the University of the Western Cape’s Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies or PLAAS - says: “I think that what this really shows is that the ANC has been forced to listen to ordinary South Africans across the country who have attended public hearings and who have said, 'We want land and we feel the government has not listened to us.'”

“People have blamed the Constitution for the government's inaction over the land issue. I think we're going to head into a new phase now where government is going to be forced to take the land issue much more seriously.”

Professor Hall delivered her public lecture on the national land debate on Thursday, 2 August 2018 at UWC. You can read Prof Hall's entire lecture on this topical issue here.