Land reform plan a work in progress
THE Constitutional Review Committee has warned against scaremongering that people’s land will be taken away after changes to the constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation.
Committee chairperson Vincent Smith told Independent Media that due process would be followed in dealing with the land reform programme.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has also warned that they will not allow land grabs. Anyone who invades land will face the full might of the law.
Smith said it was not true that after August 30, when the committee tables its report in Parliament on whether or not constitutional amendments must be made to expropriate land without compensation,
people’s land will be taken.
“Our mandate is very simple, to investigate whether section 25 of the constitution allows for land reform,” he said.
There have been varying arguments by different sectors of society with one section saying it does allow for this and another disputing it.
Smith said they will be meeting with various interested parties to determine whether the constitution needs to be amended.
“We don’t have a mandate to tell people how their land will be reformed. The first exercise is to test the constitution.
“Once all of those things are done the constitutional amendment will be done by another body. I think it’s the portfolio committee on justice and correctional services that does constitutional amendments,” he said.
After that the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform will oversee the next phase of transferring the land.
“There are two or three steps (before the expropriation of land without compensation happens). It’s not that when we come back on August 30 people will get land.”
Building blocks
“That exercise of taking land physically is the duty of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform,” said Smith.
“I have been pleading that people must stop raising temperatures that your land will be taken. That is unnecessary,” he said.
The process will be done in line with the constitution.
“Our task is really providing the building blocks for the legislative framework because all legislation must be informed by the constitution. Ours is to refine the constitution if necessary,” said Smith.
He said they were consulting with everyone in the land sector. These include banks, landowners, farmers, farmworkers, government and experts.
This was a broad consultation in this process.
Smith said this exercise of dealing with section 25 of the constitution should have been dealt with a long time ago.
Parliament was now testing whether that section could be amended. The constitutional review committee was tasked by Parliament after parties agreed it was the correct body to look at the constitutional amendments.
The committee will over the next six months push for the conclusion of this work at the end of August.