Vital to address land – Cyril

SA will become unstable if the state does not expropriate land without compensation, President Cyril Ramaphosa says.

“If we do not address it‚ it is going to cause instability in our country,” he said.

Ramaphosa was addressing black commercial and emerging farmers at a gala dinner at the Agribusiness Transformation Conference, hosted by the African Farmers’ Association of SA, in Kempton Park on Monday evening.

“Many of you as farmers would like access to land.

“It is necessary that we should do this to give access to those among us that want to work the land‚ so that we can heal this festering wound of the past.

“The only way to heal that wound is to give land to our people‚” Ramaphosa said.

“Some are getting terrified‚ some are even sending false messages abroad . . . [land expropriation without compensation] has ignited a vigorous and welcomed debate.”

Ramaphosa said expropriation without compensation was just one of the mechanisms that the government was using to effect land reform.

Meanwhile, the Land Bank said that allowing the state to seize land without compensation could trigger defaults that could cost the government R41bn if the bank’s rights as a creditor are not protected.

Land Bank chair Arthur Moloto said in the company’s 2018 annual report that the bank had about R9bn of debt.

If expropriation without compensation were to materialise without protection of the bank’s rights as a creditor, he said, it would be required to repay R9bn immediately.

This could quickly “make our entire R41bn funding portfolio due and payable immediately, which we would not be able to settle”. –