Expropriation is a Mugabe-style move

SA needs another enlightened leader such as Nelson Mandela, but it keeps electing imitations of Robert Mugabe. President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed recently that the government plans to expropriate private property without compensation, following the examples of Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

Ramaphosa says he wants “land reform” to “unlock economic growth, by bringing more land in SA to full use, and enable the productive participation of millions more South Africans in the economy”. In his telling, SA’s ills are related to the proportion of whites and blacks tilling the soil, not the economic mismanagement of predecessor Jacob Zuma or the ANC.

Supporters of expropriation claim blacks own less than 2% of rural land and less than 7% of urban land. But the government’s 2017 land audit used questionable data and underestimated land returned to blacks since the ANC won power in 1994. The Institute of Race Relations estimates that black South Africans control 30%-50% of land.

When polled, most blacks prefer cash instead of titles. Many blacks have streamed into cities to find jobs and better schools for their children. But the ANC’s Zuma-era economic follies left many of these migrants jobless and sent crime rates rising. SA’s economy shrank 2.2% in the first quarter as investors and capital fled.

Ramaphosa is promising more government spending to regain public support, but snatching private property is about as destructive a policy as there is. The ANC was founded as a revolutionary party, and the tragedy is that it won’t let the revolution end. New York, August 6