As a result of one of South Africa’s most notorious pieces of legislation, the 1913 Natives Land Act that was adopted more than a century ago, most black South Africans still do not have titles to property inland. To rectify the situation, the Free Market Foundation (FMF) launched the Khaya Lam project in 2013, which aims to bring about the titling of all the apartheid-era properties in which black families had and still have occupation rights, but not title deeds.
The Khaya Lam
Khaya Lam believes that homeownership is an important key to wealth creation and economic empowerment; it is only through tradable title deeds that homeowners can reap the benefits of legally owning and occupying their homes. The Khaya Lam project is a significant step towards unleashing the “dead cap - ital” accumulated under apartheid. Most importantly, it is a completely liberating action that will sweep away one of the last major vestiges of the iniquitous apartheid system – the prohibition upon the ownership of land by black South Africans.
The Khaya Lam project has developed a system to register the rights of homeowners. This enables the “new homeowners” to trade their property in any way they please. The Khaya Lam project not only restores property rights, but it also reduces the power of officials.
Jasson Urbach
The primary purpose of the project is thus to redress the past injustices and restore dignity to families who were previously denied the fundamental right to own their own properties. The project continues the FMF’s defense and promotion of property rights, especially for black South Africans. More specifically, this project puts into practice what the FMF has long espoused: property rights are a fundamental component of a free and prosperous society.
The total number of RTF transfers to date is 600 (100 in 2016 + 250 in 2018 + 250 in 1H2019). An additional 250 are in the process of being registered with the Deeds Registry and will be ready by December. Since the RTF sponsorship of 100 in 2016 – and excluding the 1,500 RTF subsequently sponsored – the project has raised approximately R5.2 million (approximately USD340,818).
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