Ward 2 Development Forum

Why the Forum Shapes Proposals Together

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descriptionWhy the Forum agreed that proposals should involve the communities they affect from the start. The page looks at why most of South Africa's 23 TRANCRAA areas have waited more than twenty years for their land, and what that suggests about deciding together.
tagscivic/governance, lang/en

12 min read

At our first meeting in September 2026, the Ward 2 Development Forum agreed that proposals should involve the communities they affect from the start [MS]. This page explains why we think that rule matters. It uses an example many people in the valley know: the Transformation of Certain Rural Areas Act of 1998, known as TRANCRAA. Across South Africa, most of the 23 areas covered by this law have waited more than twenty years for their land, and many are still waiting [IC]. We think part of the reason lies in the different ways communities reach decisions. The same pattern can show up in any room where the valley decides together, including ours.

What the letters in square brackets mean

Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.

  • [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record such as a law, a court order, or a government report.
  • [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from the organisation the sentence names, in its own documents or statements, or is the Forum’s own reading. It has not been checked against other sources.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

What we agreed in September

At the Forum’s first meeting on 16 September 2026, participants from Genadendal said that affected communities “should be involved from the start of a proposal, and not only after it has been written.” The meeting agreed [MS]. The same meeting discussed the TRANCRAA process for Farm 39 and agreed to leave it to the bodies already dealing with it [MS].

This page does not discuss the Farm 39 process. Its record is set out on TRANCRAA and Farm 39: The Land Transfer Process, and the Transformasie Komitee is the community’s mandated body for it [MS]. We look instead at the national record, because it shows, over many years and in many places, what can happen when different ways of deciding meet.

Twenty-eight years of TRANCRAA

Before 1998, 23 former “coloured rural areas” in four provinces were governed by the Rural Areas Act 9 of 1987 [IC]. In most of them, the state held the land in trust for the residents [IC]. TRANCRAA was meant to hand the land to a body the residents help choose: the municipality, a Communal Property Association (CPA), or another body the Minister approves [IC]. Twelve of the areas are in the Western Cape, eight in the Northern Cape, one in the Eastern Cape, and two in the Free State [IC].

The record since then:

  • In April 2018, twenty years after the Act, none of the six Namaqualand areas had been transferred. Together they cover about 1 million hectares [IC].
  • In May 2021, the Deputy Minister said Haarlem, Mamre, and most of Ebenhaeser had been transferred in 2020/21, and that all remaining transfers would be finished by 2022/23 [IC].
  • That target was missed. In October 2024 the Department told Parliament that about 603,000 of some 1.4 million hectares had been transferred [IC]. It named staff shortages, a lack of co-operation from municipalities, and disputes within communities as the main obstacles [IC].
  • In August 2025, the Minister handed over title deeds in several Namakwa areas, 27 years after the Act [IC].
  • Where dates are known, every transfer came more than twenty years after the Act [IC].

Receiving the land has not ended the difficulty. In October 2024, 82% of South Africa’s 1,742 registered CPAs were not complying with the law that governs them [IC]. The Minister listed “conflicts and infighting, failure to comply to founding legislation, inadequate governance” among their problems [MS].

The reasons the Department gives are real. Staff shortages and poor co-operation between government bodies slow any process. We think the record also points to a deeper reason, which the TIME model helps to explain.

Four ways of deciding

This site reads the valley’s history through the TIME model. The TIME Model gives a short explanation, and the full framework is on the BioConomy wiki. TIME describes four ways people organise themselves, and each has its own way of settling a question [MS].

Way of decidingIn AfrikaansWho or what settles a question
Kin and belongingFamilie en gemeenskapElders and families, drawing on who belongs and what the group has always shared
Rules and officeReëls en ampAn office-bearer, working under written rules
Price and tradePrys en handelA price that a buyer and a seller agree on
Working it out togetherSaam uitwerkNobody presides. The people affected shape the answer together.

The TIME model calls the first way “Tribes”. We use “kin and belonging” on this site, because some readers hear “tribe” as a colonial word.

In our reading, each way works best among people who already accept how it settles things [MS]. When two ways meet, one usually becomes the host, and the other takes part on the host’s terms [MS]. People whose way keeps losing can come to feel that decisions are made without them [MS].

The four ways describe how questions get settled, and most of us use all of them, depending on the question [MS]. The same person can treat leiwater as a right that comes with belonging in one setting, and as a cost to be paid in another.

What TRANCRAA asks of a community

What follows is our reading of the national record. It is one possible reason among several [MS].

In the TRANCRAA areas, the land was held in trust for the people who lived there [IC]. Belonging to such a place is a matter of kin and belonging: which family you come from, which congregation you are part of, and which land your people have used [MS].

To receive their land, the Act asks each community to take a series of steps in the rules-and-office way:

  1. Elect a committee “which has satisfied the Minister that it represents the majority” of residents [IC].
  2. Accept a definition of who counts. A resident is anyone who ordinarily lived in the area on 2 November 1998, or who paid rates or service charges there on that date [IC].
  3. Choose a receiving body: the municipality, a CPA, or another body the Minister approves [IC].
  4. Satisfy the Minister that the body’s rules balance the rights of residents, members, and users [IC].

The Minister makes the final decision [IC].

In our reading, the Act asks kin and belonging to settle with rules and office on the terms of rules and office, and it gives the final say to one side from the start [MS]. Belonging becomes a date and a rates account. The community’s voice becomes a committee that must satisfy a Minister. When a community cannot agree at any step, the Act offers one way through: the Minister decides [MS].

The record shows communities pushing back. In Komaggas, no entity had been chosen by 2018, and the community had refused the service provider appointed for the process [IC]. In the Richtersveld, the Department reported a “CPA conflict hindering transfer process” [IC].

The strain continues after the land is transferred. A CPA works through a written constitution, and it must comply with the Communal Property Associations Act [IC]. When most CPAs struggle to comply [IC], it suggests that communities which settle questions by kin and belonging are being asked to hold their land through rules and office, without the time or support to make the two fit [MS]. A 2004 study in Namaqualand found that new land rights stayed “vulnerable if isolated from training, finance and integrated development initiatives” [TBV].

What works elsewhere

Other countries have places where communities with different ways of deciding must share one table. The joint bodies that last there have some things in common. They write down in advance who is asked first and how they will decide. They keep any tie-breaker narrow and late, and both sides choose it together.

The Waikato River, New Zealand

Five iwi (Māori tribal nations) and five people appointed by the government sit on the Waikato River Authority [IC]. It decides by consensus, and only if members cannot agree does a matter go to a Minister [IC]. A founding co-chair said that in his eight years the board never had to take a vote [MS].

Haida Gwaii, Canada

The Haida Nation and the Province of British Columbia each appoint two members to a council, and choose its chair together [IC]. The council decides by consensus, then by majority vote, and the jointly chosen chair breaks a tie [IC].

Kakadu, Australia

Most members of the park’s board are traditional owners [IC]. In 2020 the board passed a vote of no confidence in the park’s managers [IC]. The vote followed work near a sacred site that went ahead against the wishes of traditional owners, and a reopening of the park with little consultation [IC]. A majority on the board did not protect the partnership when plans were made by one side alone [MS].

What this means for the Forum

The Forum treats the valley as one area and belongs to no single community [MS]. It has no host way of deciding. The TRANCRAA record shows what can happen, over decades, when one way of deciding holds the final say and the others must fit in around it [MS].

That is why we agreed that proposals should involve the communities they affect from the start. The draft How the Forum Decides Together suggests how the Forum could do this. People bringing a proposal would ask the communities it affects before writing it up. The Forum would decide in agreed steps, with a jointly chosen facilitator only as the last resort. Before discussing an item, people could place themselves on an unsigned slip, and just before a decision, each person would name the strongest point they heard from someone who sees it differently.

Starting early takes more time at the beginning. In our reading, the TRANCRAA record suggests that leaving people out at the beginning can cost far more time later [MS].

Questions and answers

Is this page about Genadendal’s land?
No. The Farm 39 process has its own page, and the Transformasie Komitee is the community’s mandated body for it [MS]. The Forum agreed to leave it to the bodies already dealing with it [MS]. This page looks at the national record.

Why not just take a vote?
A majority vote is a rules-and-office way of deciding. Where one community is larger, or has more people in the room, a vote can turn the others into guests. Whether a vote should ever be one of the Forum’s steps is still an open question on How the Forum Decides Together.

Does TIME put people into boxes?
It should not. The slips the Forum may use ask about an agenda item, and never about a person. They carry no names, and only the totals are recorded.

What does “from the start” mean?
Before anything is written. A person bringing a proposal would first name the villages, groups, and families it affects, and talk with each of them.

What happens next?
The draft will be tabled as the first item at the Forum’s November 2026 meeting. The local government elections are on 4 November 2026 [IC], and the meeting will be held after them [MS].

References

TRANCRAA

Joint bodies elsewhere

The TIME model

Graph View

Backlinks