Land redistribution
Expert analyses ANC announcement
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday that the ANC would vote in favour of the review of the SA constitution to allow for the policy of land expropriation without compensation to be implemented.
Political analyst and Unisa academic Dr Somadoda Fikeni says this is both an election ploy and an attempt to outclass the Julius Malema-led EFF. Fikeni spoke to the Daily Dispatch’s political editor ZINE GEORGE.
QUESTION: Why is it that the ANC decided that its president must make it known that the ruling party would vote in favour of expropriation of land in the debate?
ANSWER: I do think that we are in a political season and political leaders don’t want others to upstage them and claim victory over some of the obvious policy outcomes. The other reason is not to allow ANC SG (secretary general Ace Magashule) to always be the one who conveys the news, lest a divided ANC says this radical economic transformation policy is still being driven by those who supported Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to lead as party president [at the Nasrec conference last December]. So you present the face of the president.
Q: Could that be the only reason?
A: Most of these hearings (on the land question) have the same outcome. With one province left, they say they want expropriation.
Q: What are the dangers of a blanket implementation of this policy?
A: This may scare the very investors they were talking about because if it is selective, it will be a windbreaker in terms of some of those fears. Q: President Ramaphosa also announced that the ANC would approach the government and demand acceleration of agrarian reform. Why now? A: The economic pressures – and also knowing that the focus is now on socioeconomic transformation – might be the one thing that is driving the process, so that before elections come, instead of delivering food parcels, let’s do something better.
Q: Is this yet another election ploy towards 2019?
A: It’s an element of both because they have not been implementing things they have been promising. As a result, money for issues such as land reform has not been used in the main, when you have so much hunger. You could take that money for this financial year and show concrete delivery and then beyond that, next year we could see something more structured. Everything that comes now has an element of both – the calculation is an honest feeling to say something must be done. But equally it is something that says with the backlog we have, for elections purposes, let’s have some demonstration of certain things.
Q: Who stands to benefit?
A: Let’s wait for the detail because that is what will tell us what land will be expropriated. But most important will be the support that it gets given. I mean whoever gets the land, do they get the support?
Q: What does expropriation mean for a province which is rural, like the Eastern Cape, where there are sizeable pieces of communal land under the control of traditional leaders?
A: I think they are more likely to emphasise the need for blacks to get land without being prescriptive on the land tenure prescript. They are likely to leave land in the communal areas being governed in the same manner they have been.
In the cities, you are likely to see more title deeds being dished out.
Q: How relevant is the timing now that Ramaphosa and his party opted to make such a pronouncement on how ANC MPs would vote when the matter is taken to parliament for a vote, while consultations are still ongoing?
A: I do think it would have been better if they had waited for the process to finish in September, and say now that you have been heard, this is our position. Because in any event, considering the debates in eight of the nine province, it reinforces their [ANC] position in Nasrec.
Q: What is fundamentally wrong with the ANC’s approach?
A: Remember if you are a governing party, and you say this is a process, sometimes you need to be patient as a governing party for the process to conclude and not be pressured by politics. But at the same time they may spin and say, out of eight provinces, they have heard what the sentiment is.
Q: Should land be expropriated without compensation?
A: I would long ago have considered expropriation of land without compensation, but I would have been smarter in applying it. For example, you prioritise the absentee land and the land that has been working only because of government subsidy, not because it was profitable. When you take that land, in order to manage the notion that people are losing land without compensation, however, I think you may compensate any development that you may have put on that land.
If you mentor the new farmers, I may compensate you for that expertise.
Q: Who will win the debate in parliament?
A: It’s a given. The only difference is what riders you want in it. Overall it is a given considering the numbers of small parties that have been protective of this. The DA may find itself isolated given the perceptions that it is protecting the property clause if they keep on being on the other side. Because now that it is fighting the ANC on this matter, if it finds itself in the same corner as FFF+ and Afriforum, then it reinforces the same perception that it has always been trying to fight.