The government Panel on land reform, headed by Dr. Vuyokazi Mahlati, presents an encompassing analysis of government programmes suggesting revised and new programmes to increase the speed of land reform. This note registers that improvement of local democracy is not a variable in the report. The note suggests that the Panel is stuck in old ways, in effect a centralised planning tradition and a heavily top down governing model. It suggests that developing local municipal and amakhosi democracy might seem a detour in land politics but might actually lead to a different and more effective land reform. Such land reform will favour more dignity, creativity and trust among people and a more fair modernisation of the South African economy.