On Wednesday, 15 April 2015 the Khaya Lam Land Reform project delivered property ownership to 159 more Ngwathe, in the Free State.
Pledges of free hold titles were announced for more than 200 other tenants in Ngwathe.
The Khaya Lam Land Reform initiative is a partnership between the Ngwathe Municipal Council and the Free Market Foundation (FMF). This latest hand out of title deeds was made possible through sponsorship received from Dr Christo Wiese and his family, and various other donors.
Dr Wiese, who personally handed over 100 title deeds to Ngwathe beneficiaries, has also sponsored another 100 designated for Cape Town.
Founding sponsor FNB announced that, in addition to their initial 100 handed out in 2014, there are 200 more conversions in the pipeline. Other announcements made were by two local farmers who were sponsoring seven titles each for their workers and by the Weiveld farmers who would be sponsoring title deeds for twenty seven non-farmworker community members.
Within the next few months, the Khaya Lam project will have completed approximately 700 property title conversions – all at no cost to the individual black recipients.
Khaya Lam, which is transformation through ownership, has the backing of Free State Premier Ace Magashule and the support of all political parties in Ngwathe.
“A title deed is a profoundly powerful tool, a game changer for millions of this country’s poorest citizens. It can unlock dead capital into the hands of those who need it most and through them, into the economy,” the organisers said in a statement.
Khaya Lam or ”My home” is an initiative to create property owning communities who can decide for themselves how, when, and why to sell, transfer or hold onto their own property.
Private ownership is a foreign concept to many black African communities where only tribal chiefs own land, and often derided as “colonial” and “European”.
Dr Wiese said, “This initiative holds the promise of beig absolutely transformatative in the South African context. What makes this particularly exciting is that it is an initiative in which all South Africans can participate”.
FNB is part of the housing initiative:
Dr Simphiwe Madikizela, Managing Executive for Special Projects and Retail Sales at FNB Housing Finance, said, “FNB is proud of being the founding sponsor and partner with the FMF who conceived the land reform initiative through the registration of titles to the rightful owners in 2008. Even more exciting for us, is the leveraging effect of having more partners coming on board to ensure that this wonderful initiative is scaled up and accelerated. We hope that, in the future, we can all look back and point to the much needed economic transformation in terms of property development that the Ngwathe local municipality is witnessing today”.
Ngwathe Mayor Ms Joey Mochela spoke about how the positive partnership with the FMF is bringing benefits to local residents and of the enthusiasm that this initiative is generating in the community.
Smaller and individual sponsors, including farmers, are making 190 title transfers possible. The cost of converting one property to freehold title is a modest R1,850. The transfer of Ngwathe’s municipal rental housing stock into the hands of former tenants could release an estimated R2 billion of much-needed capital into the local economy, which currently suffers a high level of poverty and unemployment.
All partners agree that informing the new homeowners on how to manage their new asset is a vital part of the Khaya Lam project.