Last chance to stop costly Expropriation

Free State Agriculture (FSA) calls on all South Africans to make their submission on Parliament’s Expropriation Bill that ends this Sunday, 28 February 2021. This is the end of the written submission proses on a policy that, if promulgated as is, will have long lasting negative effects on all South Africans into the future. FSA rejects bringing into our legislation any principle whereby nil compensation can be paid for someone’s property. We believe that secure property rights are the basis for attracting investment and enabling reinvestment into ones’ own property to develop it, build it up and protect it for future generations.

Besides the macro-economic costs of the uncertainty that expropriation without compensation (EWC) ushered in just by the ANC adopting it into their manifesto, the direct costs of negotiating a price for land and having a just and equitable value determined by the courts if following in the procedures as set out in the bill, could well be more than the market value of the specified land! Hence costing more than buying land on the open market and definitely not speeding up the process of land reform.

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has warned that, “Launching a court challenge will not always be practically possible. Because of how the process is structured, property owners may well have to challenge the expropriation after having already lost the property and suffered indirect damages such as the possible loss of income.”

“For FSA a serious concern is who carries the costs of such court actions? If it is the farmer and he loses his farm, and he also loses all the capital put into fighting for his/her farm, there is no way that he can be in a similar position as prior to expropriation. This is a globally accepted principle when expropriating”, said Francois Wilken, President of FSA.

For a bankrupt state however, the door is opened that the Expropriation Bill seeks to amend the Constitution of South Africa in respect of the compensation payable to the owner of the property or the holder of unregistered rights, in that, in certain circumstance compensation will not be payable, i.e. EWC. The Bill, as opposed to the current Expropriation Act, does not place an obligation on an expropriating authority to pay compensation to the owner or holder. This unbridled and unaccountable power for any ruling party would be extremely dangerous to allow to an expropriating authority.

Anyone who wants to oppose the Expropriation Amendment Bill in its current form, can record their input on Free State Agriculture’s website at https://vrystaatlandbou.co.za/stop-expropriation/.  This input will still be forwarded to parliament to add to the 85 000 plus citizens who have already supported the position of Free State Agriculture, and will form part of our argument against EWC during oral submission in Parliament later this year and during the provincial public hearings.