STRAIGHT TALK
The ANC is trying to sneak expropriation without compensation (EWC) through as a benign tool of transformation. Make no mistake, it’s a potent weapon in a kleptocracy’s arsenal to subjugate and steal from the people of South Africa.
Yesterday in parliament the opposition successfully compelled the government to extend the closing date for objections to its Section 25 Amendment Bill (to enable EWC) from 31 Jan 2020 to 29 Feb 2020. This means we can unite and fight EWC for a month or suffer its consequences for decades.
The only way a successful society can operate is on the basis of secure private property rights and the rule of law. Anyone who cannot see that these core values are now at stake is frankly naïve. The EWC bill proposes cutting out the courts by transferring decision-making control around which property can be expropriated, and at what price, from the judiciary to the state. At the stroke of a minister’s pen, our title deeds could become worthless.
Amending the Constitution and legislation to give the state unchecked power to grab land and other property is a very, very bad idea. We all need to grasp the depth and scale of the risk and act swiftly. Zimbabwe’s story could be South Africa’s too if we don’t act en masse during the month of February. Hindsight is the best source of insight: we either learn from Zimbabwe’s path, or we follow it.
The state can be legally compelled to act in the national interest if society expresses its interest loudly enough in a public participation process. So, there are four actions I urge you to take during the month of February: 1) write an objection and email it to [email protected]; 2) sign the DA’s petition against EWC; 3) put pressure on your bank or home loan provider to object to EWC; and 4) get others in your community to do the same.
The ANC claims the purpose of EWC is to enable and accelerate land reform. But the real objective is to bring all land under state custodianship and control, to be used as a patronage tool to shore up its power and secure its access to public resources. Only the very naïve could believe otherwise.
Consider the case of David Rakgase, a poor, 78-year old, black Limpopo farmer who has had to take the state to court to compel it to sell him the land he has leased and farmed for over two decades. He won, and the state abandoned its appeal in favour of contravening the court’s judgement by offering to sell it to him at 9 times the price instructed by the court.
EWC will undermine confidence in title deeds and investment. Far from being pro-poor, EWC will be profoundly anti-poor as agricultural investment dwindles, land becomes unproductive, food shortages set in, and unemployment soars yet higher. EWC will not help the poor any more than BEE, employment equity or rigid labour legislation have. Inequality and unemployment have never been higher.
And that’s just the start of it. There’s plenty of scope for creep. After all, land is just one form of property and further changes will only need to be legislative rather than Constitutional, meaning that only a parliamentary majority of 51% will be required.
It’s already clear that scope-creep is the ANC’s modus operandi. By their own admission, the original proposed amendment (published for public comment on 6 December 2019) giving the courts control to decide on compensation was just a ruse. They’d always intended to bypass the courts.
In driving EWC, the ANC has sought to scapegoat first the Constitution and now the courts for its own abject failure to execute an effective land reform programme over the past quarter century. As no less that former president Kgalema Motlanthe pointed out in his High-Level Panel Report to Parliament, Section 25 in its current formulation in no way impedes meaningful land reform. Rather, corruption, mismanagement, lack of funding and lack of political will are the real impediments.
In other words, the ANC government itself is the obstacle, and this latest amendment proposes to vest even more power in it.
The DA-run Western Cape has a 72% success rate in agricultural land reform projects compared to an estimated 10% success rate nationally. Our urban land reform record is consistently strong, with DA governments having given out well over 100 000 title deeds in urban areas.
The DA is unequivocally opposed to amending the Constitution and we will use every mechanism at our disposal to fight it, just as we are fighting prescribed assets and the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank and healthcare.
Indeed, it would be a grave mistake to view EWC in isolation. This move is exactly in line with the ANC’s overall strategy of achieving state control over every aspect of our lives so that their feeding frenzy can continue.
Nationalising the Reserve Bank and healthcare and hanging onto failing state-owned enterprises whatever the cost to the nation, including forcing pension funds to “invest” in them, are all part of the same broad agenda of theft.
These lead not to transformation but to economic ruin. The fastest, indeed only, way to transform our society is to throw open the doors to individual ownership, enterprise and entrepreneurship by embracing the values on which these depend: the rule of law including respect for the Constitution and private property rights; a market-driven economy; and a capable state that delivers to all. These are the DA’s values and vision and our offer to South Africa.
Warm regards,
John Steenhuisen
DA Leader
Issued by the DA, 31 January 2020
