Expropriation model could win ANC favours at polls
There are genuine reasons for anxiety about expropriation without compensation, among them proliferating land invasions, nervous international investors and vulnerable financial institutions. But policy contests tend to fade over time as citizens tire of the complexity of setting the world to rights. There is every chance the heat will have left the issue before the end of May 2019.
Expropriation without compensation started out confusingly due to mixed messages in the ANC’s Nasrec conference resolutions. That confusion has been deepened by the creation of overlapping processes for deliberating on the modalities.
Parliament’s joint constitutional review committee has solicited public submissions on how to facilitate expropriation. President Cyril Ramaphosa has created an interministerial committee on land reform to provide political oversight and “co-ordinate, integrate and ensure accelerated implementation of the recommendations of the joint committee”. In addition, the Presidency has appointed a broadly conservative advisory panel to review and research implementation models.
The ANC leadership’s message has been that section 25 of the constitution should be amended for essentially political reasons, regardless of the necessity of such an amendment. The constitution and international agreements to which SA is party require appropriate compensation in the event of expropriation.
A broad range of factors can be invoked, including “market value”; how, or whether, the land is currently used; how it was acquired; historical state subsidies; the purpose of the expropriation; and levels of investment by owners and consequent indebtedness.
Speaking at the Cape Town Press Club on Tuesday, Prof Ruth Hall, a member of the advisory panel, suggested that consensus may be emerging about a model for graduated compensation, which would weigh these relevant factors.
If this is true, the ANC will go into the elections having met its commitment to make expropriation without compensation possible, but before the constitutionality of this model has been tested.
Ramaphosa can throw in additional promises, such as agricultural assistance for smallholder farmers, transfers of agricultural land to black farmers, and title deed initiatives in urban areas.
Such an approach would place considerable pressure on the main opposition parties.
After the elections, there will be tough decisions to take.
Ramaphosa cannot continue with two government departments — agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and rural development and land reform
— that advance dramatically different land reform policies. Since land reform will clearly not succeed without the active co-operation of commercial farmers, he will also have to embrace a partnership model.
Traditional leaders who deny their subjects control over their own land will have to be confronted, for electoral as well as developmental reasons.
Land in SA is largely an urban and peri-urban issue. Most people do not want to farm but rather to make a home close to urban employment. Making a real difference here will require institutional reforms: an expanded mandate for the department of human settlements or an empowering of metropolitan authorities.
It will also require a sustained drive to overcome legal obstacles to pro-poor land-use planning. There must also be a programme to exploit strategically located land controlled by government departments and parastatals.
None of this will be easy to accomplish. But the prospects of success are very little affected either by leftist doctrines of expropriation or by liberal preoccupations with the defence of the constitution.