Land appropriation constitutional amendment set to be finalised by next month

The amendment of Section 25 of the constitution – paving the way for the appropriation of land without compensation – is set to be finalised by next month, following Friday’s provisional acceptance by MPs of the broad thrust of the report on public participation.

Subject to proposed additions by MPs on the parliamentary multiparty ad hoc committee, chaired by Dr Mathole Motshekga, lawmakers accepted the 95-page document, expected to be endorsed by early next month.

They agreed that additional political party inputs would be submitted to the committee secretariat.

Most MPs – except those of the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus – supported closing the door to any further oral submissions from the banking sector and other stakeholders.

ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters MPs maintained all stakeholders had already been offered sufficient opportunity to make submissions, a process which saw over 200 000 written submissions received and countrywide public hearings held.

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The committee drafted the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill in 2019 to initiate and introduce legislation to amend section 25 of the constitution – a section referred to as the Property Clause – laying a framework for the protection of property rights, while balancing it with imperatives for the transformation of property relations in South Africa.

Section 25 of the constitution provides for the:

• Prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of property.
• Seizure of land to be administered under a law of general application – not promoting any arbitrary deprivation.
• Provision of a just and equitable payment of compensation in the event of expropriation.
• In the document, those in favour of the amendment have argued that amending Section 25 and implementing land reform programmes was “likely to give dignity back to indigenous people whose land was wrongfully, illegally and forcefully taken away from them”.

ALSO READ: Expropriation bill ‘will limit property rights’ in SA

“It will enable this group of people to participate effectively in agricultural production and in developing and strengthening the economy of the country. Thus, economic development will not be reserved for a minority group in the country, but all,” they said.

Parties opposed to the Bill being signed into law have called for recognition of previous land restitution and land claims processes undertaken by government.

In their submission, they claimed that 1.8 million individuals in government’s land restitution programme had already received compensation in the form of land or money.

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“The compensation to claimants was achieved without the need to expropriate land without compensation.

“The strong inference was that the remainder of land claims can also be resolved without interfering with the constitution.

“In essence, the proposed Bill constitutes an interference to the constitution and the values on which it is based or grounded,” they argued.

Government spent over R1.4 billion buying farms in the Eastern Cape to redistribute to aspirant farmers, but it was claimed that of the 265 farms purchased, only 26 remained viable. Another claim was that in 90% of cases once-thriving farms were in ruins.

– brians@citizen.co.za

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