Comment invited on draft land seizure bill

The release of a draft Land Expropriation Bill has sparked concern from various political and agricultural organisations, including Agri SA, EFF and the UDM.

This follows Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi’s recent invitation to the public to comment on the draft bill between now and February 21.

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The draft bill outlines circumstances under which the state can seize land without compensation.

These circumstances include, amongst others, land which is occupied or used by labour tenants; land held for purely speculative purposes; land belonging to a state-owned enterprise and land which has been abandoned buy its owner,

Farmers’ groups and some opposition parties say this will undermine property rights and deter investment.

The draft is the third version of the bill, with the first having been released in 2008.

According to a statement from Agri SA, while the proposed law ‘provides more clarity on expropriation without compensation, which Agri SA opposes, its reach and definitions must be clarified urgently’.

It added that the definition of expropriation in the new bill is ‘too narrow and is out of line with international trends, posing the danger that the state can place all kinds of restrictions on ownership without compensating the owner’.

EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu described the decision to publish the draft legislation as ‘disgusting legislative opportunism because parliament has resolved on a larger process to amend the constitution’.

He said the call for public comments was ‘irrational’.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa described the bill as ‘bogus legislation’ and asked where it had been discussed.

The amendment to change the constitution to expropriate land without compensation was passed before parliament went into recess, and March 31 has been set as the deadline for the constitutional change to be finalised.

Both the EFF and the UDM said they supported expropriation of land without compensation to ‘redress dispossession of black people under colonial and apartheid rule’.

Written comments on the bill are to be sent to the department of public works before the closing date.

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