The Expropriation Bill’s attempt to gain the power to expedite and make easier to wield, government’s power to expropriate private property, should be strictly limited and circumscribed. The bill should honour property rights and limit State power. These were some of the appeals in business organisation Sakeliga's extensive comment on the controversial bill, which was submitted this week as part of the public participation process.
Advertisement Piet le Roux, CEO of Sakeliga, said the bill should be aligned with international best practice: “Best practice regards expropriation as a serious, highly-disruptive and costly infringement of livelihoods, individual and community autonomy, as well as productive economic coordination. The mechanisms of expropriation and deprivation of rights ought to be applied very sparingly, if at all. In the case of expropriation, State power is exceedingly tipped in the favour of the state and its political agents, and against legal subjects. This requires severe limits on State power.”