The president delivered the keynote address at the government’s national Day of Reconciliation event at the Bergville Municipal Sports Complex in the Okhahlamba Local Municipality.

JOHANNESBURG – President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday said it was government’s priority to accelerate the process of land reform to benefit communities like Bergville in KwaZulu-Natal.

Ramaphosa delivered the keynote address at the government’s national Day of Reconciliation event at the Bergville Municipal Sports Complex in the Okhahlamba Local Municipality.

Bergville is one of the areas where locals were dispossessed and stripped of their land during apartheid.

Ramaphosa and Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa spoke under the theme The Year of Indigenous Languages.

The president said there needed to be a correction of injustices done to people like those in Bergville.

“It is the priority of this government to accelerate the process of land reform, and in doing so, we will be guided by the decisions of our Parliament and recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform,” Ramaphosa said.

“At the same time, we will continue with the restitution process, and with freeing up state-owned land for farming and for the building of houses for our people. We call on private landowners, commercial farmers and the private sector to take proactive steps to accelerate the land reform process by supporting farmworkers and communities to acquire land and to farm it,” he added.