DA won’t let the ANC sneak the Expropriation Bill through Parliament

21 May 2018

The DA notes with concern that the ANC has resolved that Parliament must urgently pass the Expropriation Bill.

This was discussed at the party’s two-day land summit which was held over the weekend.

The DA believes the Expropriation Bill, which was sent back to Parliament by former President Jacob Zuma due to a lack of public consultation, is fundamentally flawed and will not allow the ANC to pass it without due process and consultation.

Parliament is an independent, multi-party institution and it does not take instructions from Luthuli House. We will not let the ANC reduce Parliament to a rubberstamping institution that absolves government from its policy failures.

The ANC’s newfound enthusiasm for the Expropriation Bill is frankly suspicious and calls into question the reasoning behind their support for the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution.

Parliament’s legislative processes should be allowed to run its course, free from outside interference and the DA will not allow the Expropriation Bill to proceed without broad-based participation.

The ANC must own up to their massive failure to bring justice to people who were dispossessed and who still remain landless. It is nothing but a ruse to use expropriation without compensation to disguise their failures in land reform. As the report of the High-Level Panel, chaired by former President Kgalema Motlanthe, found: “[I]ncreasing evidence of corruption by officials, the diversion of the land reform budget to elites, lack of political will, and lack of training and capacity have proved more serious stumbling blocks to land reform.”

The Expropriation Bill is not the panacea for the rampant corruption and failed policies of the ANC which have stifled land reform in South Africa.

Whereas the DA wants South Africans to be real owners of land with the right to choose, the ANC and the EFF want people to be permanent tenants on the land. If President Cyril Ramaphosa is truly committed to land reform and giving people the dignity of land rights, he must re-consider policies which seek to create permanent tenants and not land owners.

Issued by Thandeka Mbabama, DA Shadow Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, 21 May 2018