Oom Cyril hasn’t got this

Brandaan Huigen (“Oom Cyril has got this 28 April) says that President Cyril Ramaphosa is playing a clever double-sided game of appearing to support expropriation without compensation, while cunningly neutralising it.

This narrative has been doing the rounds since the beginning of 2018, but has never been substantiated with anything more than the vague belief that the president is a “reformer” and is “probusiness”. Huigen offers little in support of this position. Even if it is true that Ramaphosa is personally opposed to expropriation without compensation, and has been forced by the internal dynamics of the ANC to endorse the policy, the fact remains that the momentum in favour of it is well under way.

The push to amend the Bill of Rights has continued, and, before the lockdown, the ANC indicated that its preferred amendment would see the relevant powers removed from the courts and handed to the executive. The implications of this for property rights are concerning indeed. Keep faith with “Oom Cyril” if you wish, but the powers so conferred is likely to last beyond his incumbency. Moreover, the suggestion that Covid-19 is a catalyst for market-friendly reform is doubtful in the extreme. The pandemic’s ravages notwithstanding, the government has chosen to aggravate its economic effect by refusing to unwind restrictions that have little to do with containing the virus. It clings to destructive racebased empowerment policies in apportioning aid. And even on the rhetorical front, Ramaphosa himself has promised “a compact for radical economic transformation”.

Huigen is to be applauded for recognising the dangers that the expropriation without compensation drive holds for SA’s fortunes.

It is equally dangerous to see the country’s deliverance in a leader who has shown no real inclination to stand up for it. Terence Corrigan

Institute of Race Relations