South African think tank the Free Market Foundation (FMF) has, while praising the elimination of gender discrimination in the Upgrading or Land Tenure Rights Act (ULTRA) Amendment Bill, sharply criticised other aspects of the proposed legislation. In particular, the FMF cited the excessive discretionary powers the Bill will give to the responsible Minister and that it amounted to land dispossession. ULTRA, in its current form, gave black South Africans living on formal land the right to the title deeds for that land, explained the think tank. These title deeds would be fully tradable. It should have transformed the lives of, and empowered, many of the poorest of South Africans. Yet the law has largely gone unenforced. “ULTRA has been ignored except by the FMF’s Khaya Lam Land Reform Project which has been helping homeowners, mostly elderly black women, exercise their right to title deeds,” affirmed FMF CEO Leon Louw.
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