Expropriation Bill – Property rights again under threat –ANC’s survival depends on land question

28 March 2024  

The Afrikanerbond is on record and we wish to state unequivocally yet again that any process advocating a unilateral change in property rights cannot be accepted. For this reason the National Assembly’s passing of the Expropriation Bill is disappointment but not unexpected.

The constitutionality of the bill must be questioned anew, and it is inevitable at this stage that the ill-considered issue will be taken further through litigation. Few of the many existing methods and possibilities have been exploited so far. Furthermore, it has become increasingly clear that the deprivation and expropriation of property is a mere symbol for political purposes.

There should be no doubt in the minds of any interested parties that the ANC will be using and exploiting the issue of land and property rights as an election ploy. First and foremost, the ANC government has proven that it cannot be trusted with land, property rights or even land reform processes. The ball has been dropped too many times and the process botched by an incompetent and inept government and clumsy policy implementation characterised by large-scale corruption.

Starting an expropriation process at all, especially if the 'public interest' is to be interpreted ideologically, is not only worrisome; however well disguised and justified by false reasoning, it is, moreover, a unilateral breach of the 1994 national accord and undermines the 1996 constitution.

The Afrikanerbond did submit formal comments in the process but is also already involved, together with other civil society institutions, in further considering the issue thoroughly. The country cannot allow the ANC to use the issue of property rights, as guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as either a weapon in its factional in-fighting or a party-political election ploy. The draft legislation gives the ANC government the space to arbitrarily expropriate land, and this has enormous implications for business and investor confidence.

Issued by Jan Bosman, Chief Secretary of the Afrikanerbond, 28 March 2024