Foreign projects stalled after expropriation developments

29 March 2018

Parliament’s decision to pass a motion regarding expropriation without compensation, resulted in two European projects in South African agriculture being cancelled. Those projects would have meant an inflow of several million Rand whilst creating thousands of work opportunities.  Over and above the cancellation, TAU SA was involved in the establishment of a financing model which would have created affordable agricultural financial support, but those negotiations were also stalled after the announcement of the ANC policy of expropriation without compensation. 

Furthermore, the announcement by the Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development that she is not going to wait for the recommendations of the ad-hoc committee regarding amendments to the Constitution, as well as the statement that government is preparing a test case regarding expropriation, send a negative message to international investors”, said Mr Louis Meintjes, president of TAU SA.

“Government must realise that the international community is not easily bluffed. The developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, are easily recalled and clearly indicate that expropriation is the first step to nationalisation which will result in a socialist system and eventually the establishment of a communist regime. As long as the ANC does not align itself with property rights and a free market system, capital will increasingly be invested elsewhere.”

“The ultimate result of what government is currently introducing, is the collapse of the economy and the redistribution of poverty which will affect all of us. International business will invest where profit could be made, and they are clearly not willing to risk investments to support a failed ideology. It is not possible to send out a clearer message by expressing the intention to expropriate without compensation. In any developed society, this is regarded as theft, and efforts to disguise the intention to do so constitutionally, will not change that fact.”

Issued by Louis Meintjes, President, TAU SA, 29 March 2018