The draft constitutional amendment bill (the Bill) allowing land expropriation without compensation (EWC) is already damaging enough to make South Africa largely uninvestable.
The Ad Hoc Committee (the Committee) responsible for drafting the Bill is nevertheless considering amending it – and making it very much worse – in three crucial ways.
In particular, the Bill might be changed to:
limit the role of the courts in deciding on ‘nil’ compensation;
extend the ‘nil’ compensation provisions from land to property of all kinds; and
make the state the custodian of all land, as the EFF continues to demand.
Such changes are potentially momentous. Yet how much public participation will be allowed on these further changes remains unclear.
The thought of land expropriation without compensation is keeping many South Africans awake at night. Myriad experts have warned against the dangers of land expropriation, with the fear of international disinvestment being a possibility. Not only will it discourage much needed investment into South Africa and stall the economy, but it has many South Africans worried about what will happen to their homes and other assets. In an earlier interview with BizNews, financial expert Dawn Ridler explained why going forward with this will severely effect the economy. “Land or property ownership – or the rights attached to property ownership – is very valued, in capitalist societies particularly. I just worry that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.” Below, Anthea Jeffery outlines the real purpose behind EWC and the Expropriation Bill. – Jarryd Neves
The real purpose of the EWC and Expropriation Bills - Biznews
15 April 2021 - Last week the Ad Hoc Committee responsible for drafting an expropriation-without- compensation (EWC) constitutional amendment bill (the EWC Bill) invited three ministers, including minister of mineral resources and energy Gwede Mantashe, to put forward their comments on its draft to date.
The thought of land expropriation without compensation is keeping many South Africans awake at night. Myriad experts have warned against the dangers of land expropriation, with the fear of international disinvestment being a possibility. Not only will it discourage much needed investment into South Africa and stall the economy, but it has many South Africans worried about what will happen to their homes and other assets. In an earlier interview with BizNews, financial expert Dawn Ridler explained why going forward with this will severely effect the economy. “Land or property ownership – or the rights attached to pro
Ramaphosa’s only ‘success’ is forging ahead with NDR - Biznews
18 February 2021 - Despite the many pious platitudes in last week’s SONA (state-of-the-nation address), the only ‘reforms’ President Cyril Ramaphosa is busy implementing are the policy shifts needed to advance the national democratic revolution (NDR) to which both he and the SACP/ANC alliance have long been committed.
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n an article published on BizNews last year, the IRR’s Anthea Jeffery described the National Democratic Revolution as a ‘Soviet-inspired programme intended to take the country by incremental steps – and over a period of 40 years or more – from a capitalist economy to a socialist one’. Jeffery elaborates further, listing three of the ‘most damaging’ interventions that were to be introduced at the time. One of them was allowing for expropriation without compensation – a topic that has many South Africans fearing the future. The potential damage of EWC on the economic gr