The land expropriation debate is an emotive topic for South Africans for a spectrum of reasons. Despite the country’s divide on the topic, the amendment bill to the Constitution that would allow land expropriation without compensation has not been passed.
As of Tuesday, December 7, the National Assembly was unable to pass the amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution. This was the result of the ANC being unable to obtain a two-thirds majority vote for the pass. Neither the DA nor the EFF supported the take.
The amended Expropriation Bill initially came about as an attempt to ‘right inequalities’ and as a ‘solution’ to the slow pace of South Africa’s 27-year-old market-based land reform programme, as the Trust for Community Outreach expressed as per Daily Maverick.
Different opinions regarding the ‘land debate’ have been a cause for a hotbed of contestation in South Africa. Some viewed expropriation without compensation as justified for the chokehold apartheid had on the property ownership rights of people of colour, while others saw it as an opportunity for the government to take a bigger slice of the land pie, seeing their ‘desire’ to distribute land as a far cry from an assumed reality whereby more corruption would ensue.
The land expropriation actually extends far beyond land itself and well into the realms of farming livelihood, food security and the agriculture sector.
As the Trust for Community Outreach also noted, the bill has many limitations, which is why serious doubts had been held regarding the government’s commitment to land reform.
In response to the NA’s failure to pass the amended bill, ANC MP Mathole Motshekga expressed that “the House had an opportunity, through adopting the bill they were pushing for, to eradicate the original sin in the interest of all South Africans,” as per News24. He further indicated that it would’ve been the solution to the “crime against the African community,” said crime pertaining to the dispossession of land.
For the EFF’s take, leader Julius Malema indicated that the EFF’s lack of vote stemmed from not trusting the ANC’s preoccupation with maintaining the status quo. He instead expressed that the means was on the people, and not trust in the ANC to take back their land themselves.
Malema further commented on his party’s rejection of the amendment by highlighting that the “nil compensation” clause was not supported by his party, despite the EFF’s mission for land reformation.
“It is vague and will in essence provide for extra limited instances which the compensation could be below the market value or the land,” he noted as per EWN.
As for the DA, MP Annelie Lotriet said that the Constitution and Section 25 go counter to the rule of law as “this bill falls foul of the Bill of Rights.”
Land reformation and land expropriation debates are likely not going anywhere despite the ANC’s rejected amendment, writes Cape {town} Etc’s Ashleigh Nefdt. A topic with opinions as diverse as our country itself perhaps poises a bigger conversation: when the government has shown you a dedication toward the ‘status quo’, why would said status quo not include their biggest continuum – corruption.
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