Suspend land expropriation
THE Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has become the latest civil rights organisation in the country to appeal to President Cyril Ramaphosa to suspend any move to expropriate land without compensation.
Yesterday, senior IRR officials led by Sihle Ngobese – head of strategic operations – arrived at the Union Buildings in Pretoria and handed over seven boxes containing signatures of South Africans who are opposed to land expropriation without compensation to the Presidency.
A senior official in the Presidential office accepted the signatures while Ramaphosa was in KwaZulu-Natal, handing over schools to disadvantaged communities.
Ngobese said their move was the culmination of a campaign they undertook in May last year in which they asked several respondents about their views on expropriation of land.
“We managed to collect 160 000 signatures of people who were opposed to land expropriation without compensation,” Ngobese said.
He, however, refused to give a racial breakdown of people who participated in their campaign saying they treated everyone as South Africans, irrespective of race.
Addressing the media, Ngobese appeared to suggest that if Ramaphosa is not putting a hold on expropriation of land, it would have a negative effect on the outcome of elections for the ANC.
According to him, expropriation of land without compensation includes “giving politicians powers to take people’s pensions, private property and cellphones”.
He said the government should do away with some state-owned entities and channel the funds given to them towards land reform. Ngobese added that the government should also cut down on the Presidential VIP budget.
Their action came five months after the Joint Constitutional Review Committee (JCRC) adopted a report in favour of an amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution which would allow the government to expropriate land without compensation.
The ANC, EFF and National Freedom Party voted in favour while the DA and Cope opposed it.
But according to Ngobese, the JCRC “ignored written submissions” made to it, saying most of those submissions were from people and organisations that were opposed to expropriation without compensation.
While the IRR is expecting Ramaphosa to act, another civil rights organisation – AfriForum – is in the US lobbying Donald Trump’s government officials to put pressure on the South African government to halt the impending expropriation of land.