DA to oppose in committee strategic plan proposing nationalisation of farm land

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will today oppose the adoption of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform's 2010-2013 Strategic Plan in the Portfolio Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform. We hope that other opposition parties will join us in this action.

The controversial plan proposes the placing of all productive land under the control of the state and an amendment of section 25 of the Constitution - the provision that protects private property against expropriation - in order to achieve this.

The DA will recommend to the Committee that the passage proposing all productive land to be placed under the control of the state be removed from the Strategic Plan.

It reads:

"[Under option one,] all productive land will become a national asset and a quitrent land tenure system either with perpetual or limited rights is envisaged. This may require an amendment to section 25 of the Constitution."

The claim by the Department that declaring all productive farmland a ‘national asset' is not the same as nationalisation is merely an argument in semantics as the proposal would indeed place in the control of the state all productive land. How this would be different to nationalisation is not clear, since the state, through legal means, would take control of former private property. The Department's Strategic Plan spells it out quite clearly.

It is precisely the sort of foolish measure that would cripple South Africa's agricultural sector. The devastation to the economy that would occur should South African agricultural land be nationalised cannot be underestimated. One need only look at the near irreparable economic damage that was caused by the nationalisation of agricultural land in Zimbabwe.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is in full support of reversing the effects of cruel land dispossession under Apartheid and for these injustices to be undone. In our alternative budget we proposed the expansion of the budget for Land Reform and Restitution grants by more than 50%. We have in the past and will continue to argue for a state land reform policy that provides a comprehensive set of proactive measures, with budgetary backing, to tackle the stagnation of land reform in South Africa.

Land Reform under the ANC has failed and the administration, inspired by outdated nationalisation dogma, now seems to be looking for a shortcut that will destroy the right to private land ownership - a right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and has a Zimbabwe-styled crisis written all over it.

Statement issued by Annette Steyn, MP, Democratic Alliance deputy shadow minister of land affairs and rural development, March 23 2010

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