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AfriForum claims it has the list of farms that will be expropriated
Government was unwilling to reveal which properties it is targeting, but the lobby group got hold of it anyway.
AfriForum’s Ernst Roets, author of the newly released “Kill the Boer” book poses for a picture during the launch, 28 June 2018, Kleinkaap Boutique Hotel, Centurion. Picture: Jacques Nelles
On Sunday, AfriForum urged landowners to check a list on its website it claims contains the names of farms already identified by the ANC for expropriation without compensation.
Last week, the ruling party resolved to select 139 farms to expropriate without compensation.
The Afrikaner lobby group did not explain how it had come upon the information, which the ANC-led government has tried to keep secret.
According to AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets, the list includes mostly farms, though a few smallholdings are also named.
The ANC announced last week it would be targeting these properties first as test cases for how land expropriation without compensation will be conducted. It’s understood the properties belong to white owners who were not willing to sell them to government after land claims were made on them.
The valuer-general is now likely to set a price of R0 when expropriating them.
When another Afrikaner lobby group, Sakeliga, demanded access to the list earlier this week, government turned them away, saying land expropriation without compensation would be handled confidentially between the individual land owners affected and government, according to rural development and land reform ministry head Mashile Mokono.
Mokono could not confirm the claim that Sakeliga had served the rural development and land reform department with an application requesting the list, which Sakeliga’s Armand Greyling said they had indeed done.
But Mokono said this was “unlikely to happen”.
“Until the affected land owner has been served with expropriation notices, what they are asking for is unlikely to happen. We will deal confidentially with people on an individual basis and not as a group; it’s a matter which cannot be made public,” said Mokono.
Sakeliga told Maroela Media on Sunday that they were still being ignored by government, but had seen AfriForum’s list.
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AfriForum has said its list is longer than 139. An examination of it shows that it includes 195 properties. Some of them have been grouped together as one “case” though, according to a report in Maroela Media.
Roets said they trusted their source and felt it was incumbent upon them to make the list public.
It includes the names of farms, their provinces, districts and farm numbers. The owners’ names are, however, not mentioned. AfriForum has therefore asked the public to examine the list and for any farm owners to contact them if they recognise their properties on the list.
Maroela Media was unable to get comment from government about the list and whether it is accurate.
You can see it for yourself here and here. It has been published in Afrikaans.
Parliament’s joint constitutional review committee concluded its provincial public hearings last weekend into whether section 25 of the constitution should be amended to allow for expropriation of land without compensation.
