Need information on expropriation

FOLLOWING last week’s historic passing of the parliamentary motion on land expropriation, the ANC has been at pains to explain that we are not about to go down the Zimbabwean route.

Its leaders have moved to calm an increasingly panicked domestic and global business community which fears “land grabs” underpinned by anarchy.

Whatever the ANC’s message, there can be no denying that last week’s parliamentary nod for the expropriation of land without compensation is, to a degree, rooted in politics of populism.

Yet, this does not in any way delegitimise the frustration of millions of black South Africans for whom access to land is both a matter of dignity and belonging as it is about access to economic opportunities.

The emotive debate which unfolded in the last week has overshadowed two important questions, in our view.

The first is why the government failed spectacularly to redistribute land despite its constitutional right to do so in the last two decades.

Widening the scope of the constitution is pointless if the systemic and deliberate failure in the state machinery is not dealt with.

The second is what expropriation without compensation means in practical terms.

This is the question that appears to have stumped even the drivers of this project.

The ANC’s head of economic transformation, Enoch Godongwana, admitted as much last week.

Many are pinning their hopes on the review committee which is looking into Section 25 of the constitution to, hopefully, give practical meaning to what is currently an overarching yet vague decision.

At the end of this process, we hope, will be before parliament a piece of progressive legislation that will improve our food security and go some way to bridging inequality while safeguarding us from a path of self-destruction.