Speakers Inc Magazine, Volume 2

S t e p h e n G r o o t e s
REFORM
LAND SA'S
The debate and conversation around land ownership in
South Africa, and what has become the battlecry of
“expropriation without compensation” has become one of
the dominant political issues of the year. So powerful is the
issue, and so closely is it tied up with political identity” that it
is likely to remain an important issue for many years to
come. It is also likely to have a big impact on next year’s
elections, on sometimes unexpected ways. But, at the same
time, there are also elements to it that may be more complex
than is sometimes assumed. By Stephen Grootes.
At the time of writing, Parliament’s Constitutional Review
Committee has resolved that the Constitutional clause
around land and property, Clause 25, will be changed. While
the committee does not have the power to dictate what the
clause should be changed to, or what the final text should
look like, the ANC has said that will make it more explicit
that expropriation without compensation is allowed, for the
particular purpose of land reform.
Already, there are at least two court challenges in the works.
The first is from the Institute for Race Relations. It has
problems with the process, saying that it appears that
thousands of submissions that were opposed to a change of
the Constitution were ignored. The Constitutional Court has
spelt out a definition of “meaningful consultation” in a
previous case, which means that this process could be
challenged against that standard. The second case is from
Afriforum, which is vehemently opposed to any kind of
expropriation. These two cases are simple harbingers of what
is likely to come. No matter how the political process plays
out, is is very likely that every step of the way will be
challenged in court.
However, that may not be the best outcome to this issue.
Land, and land occupation, is in some ways the “original sin”
of South Africa. Black people, who occupied the land, were
forcibly removed from it, by white people. This is a historical
fact that underpins the conversation around it now. At the
same time, it is also fair to ask whether this issue would have
the political power it does now if it had not been used by
former President Jacob Zuma and his supporters during the
run-up to the ANC’s Nasrec conference. And it is also clear
that the resolution taken at NASREC to expropriate without
compensation was very nearly defeated. As a result of this,
the issue is still hugely contested within the ANC.
One of the aspects of this debate that is easily missed, is that
there are two strands to the argument to expropriate. One
group of people, generally around President Cyril Ramphosa
and the ANC in Gauteng, often concentrates on “giving land”
to people who currently don’t have it. They focus on urban
land, on the need to “give land” to those who have no assets
at all. The point here, is that their focus is on helping people
who have nothing.
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