It is the state's responsibility to protect the most vulnerable. And it is in the interests of developers to work around given policies to create wealth. It is as simple as that.

The leader of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) and newly appointed Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development, Mzwanele Nyhontso, has promised to hit the ground running and tackle land dispossession in South Africa, which he has termed the 'original sin'.

Every stakeholder in the sector will be closely watching his moves and listening to his words, particularly since he comes from the PAC, a party that has defined its historic task as returning the land to the people. This encompasses a hardcore stance of land repossession that goes beyond expropriation without compensation.

Since its formation in 1959, the PAC has viewed the ANC's stance on land - based on the Freedom Charter - as a compromise.

The Freedom Charter states: "The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It! Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger."

It came as no surprise when the PAC continued being critical of the "willing buyer, willing seller" principle adopted by the ANC in dealing with land restitution in South Africa post-1994.

The involvement of the PAC in the government of...