SIU confirms that the ANC is ready to ramp-up corruption with expropriation without compensation

24 January 2019

The Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU) report into widespread and endemic corruption in the government’s land reform programme, is yet more proof that we don’t have a Constitutional problem, we have an ANC problem.

The SIU states that government’s “vague” land reform programme has led to “rent-a-crowds” receiving millions of rands in land redistribution grants they were never entitled to. 42 People which include government officials have reportedly been recommended for prosecution for fraud and corruption linked to such scams.

The SIU report which has been gathering dust on Cyril Ramaphosa’s desk for nearly a year, confirms that the President has no intention to fix the rampant corruption and real issues in the land reform programme.

It is exactly this corruption on the part of the ANC government that has denied South Africans their justice. This is why the Democratic Alliance (DA) continues to oppose land expropriation without compensation.

In fact, if expropriation without compensation is enacted by the ANC-EFF coalition of corruption after the 2019 elections, it will allow the government to ramp-up corruption by removing citizens from their land and giving the land to their connected cronies. The ANC government is already making people permanent tenants under its current land reform programme.

The ANC’s manifesto also stated clearly that expropriation extends beyond land as the ANC is now readying themselves to take people’s pension as well. Due to their chronic failure in government, the ANC now wants to take the hard-earned pensions of ordinary South Africans to rescue sinking state-owned entities (SOE).

The DA will not allow the ANC and the EFF to trample on the rights of South Africa. If we want to steer South Africa on a better path we need to send a clear message this year that corruption will not be rewarded. We need to expropriate power from the ANC and vote for a party that believes in giving people title to their land and that is willing and able to fix the broken land reform programme – the DA.

Issued by Thandeka Mbabama, DA Spokesperson on Land, 24 January 2019