SA to act fast on land expropriation
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday evening that the South African government will proceed to amend the constitution to allow expropriation without compensation. There is legitimate concern that by pre-empting the findings of the parliamentary consultation processes, the president has used his position as head of state in an effort to address internal ANC divisions and to get ahead of next year’s election battles. But what might it mean for the intended beneficiaries of land reform? And what about the likely concerns of owners of property? It’s worth reminding ourselves of how South Africa got here.
The ANC has made a number of public statements since it resolved in December last year at Nasrec to proceed with land expropriation without compensation. In his first public statement after his election as ANC president, Ramaphosa told the country that the ANC will increase its efforts to implement land reform and rural development, and that one of the mechanisms to achieve this will be expropriation without compensation.
Ramaphosa stated three important provisos: such mechanisms would not undermine future economic investment, damage agricultural production and food security or harm other economic sectors. In his State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa reiterated the Nasrec resolution, adding that a process of consultation would inform the “modalities” of expropriation without compensation, and a parliamentary committee would be set up to investigate whether the constitution needed to be amended.
By the time the president responded to the parliamentary debate in his State of the Nation speech, he had added that measures to fast-track land redistribution would not include “smash and grab” actions. He argued that the property clause in the constitution was intended to transform property relations in order to achieve greater equity in land ownership, not keep property in the hands of the few. Land reform had so far not achieved equity as was apparent in that 72 percent of farms continue to be owned by white people while Africans only own 4 percent.
Ramaphosa identified key priority groups for land reform, namely labour tenants who had legally claimed farmland and people living in informal settlements and occupying derelict inner-city buildings where the owners had abandoned the properties. He also assured people living under chiefs, particularly those on Ingonyama Trust land, that the ANC had no intention of taking land away from black people but would investigate ways of securing the tenure of the customary owners.
Subsequent statements after the ANC’s summit on the issue in May also reiterated a cautious approach to constitutional amendments while emphasising the urgent need to address persistent racial and gender inequality in access to land. Once again, emphasis was given to labour tenants and long-term farm residents, informal settlement occupiers and people living in abandoned inner city buildings — none of whom own the land they live on. Expropriation without compensation was again seen as one of a range of mechanisms to address ownership inequality and spatial equity.
Given this background, how should the president’s announcement that the constitution will be amended to allow expropriation without compensation be understood, and what are some of the consequences of this strategy likely to be?
Many South Africans have watched the constitutional review committee’s public consultations across the country with interest and either consternation or excitement. In media report after media report, the deeply racially polarised divisions on property and the constitution have become apparent.
Most white people have defended their rights to property (mainly farms) on the grounds that they bought the farms with their own resources, produce food and create jobs and asked that the constitution be left alone. Most black people spoke about evictions and abuse on farms, difficulties of getting access to land, the hardships that land deprivation had caused them and asked that the constitution be amended to give land back to the “rightful (African) owners”. Read the full article on www.herald.co.zw