DA to fight unconstitutional Expropriation Bill
24 March 2015
Today the Minister of Public Works, Thulas Nxesi, introduced and briefed the Portfolio Committee on Public Works on the latest version of the Expropriation Bill which remains unconstitutional. The DA will fight tooth and nail to ensure that this Bill is not bulldozed through Parliament in its current form.
The bill will have a disastrous impact on the lives of all South African's as it will inevitably lead to mass job losses as a direct result of a capital flight away from South Africa. The bill is a populist ANC ploy to garner votes in 2016 but its effects will be felt by ordinary, hardworking South African's for generations to come.
While the Bill has gone a long way to bring the Expropriation Act in line with the provisions of the Constitution, it has missed one of the most important affronts to the Constitution. Today, we are a constitutional democracy and laws have to meet constitutional muster. The state does not have unlimited power and the new Bill provides organs of state, as expropriating authorities, with powers which exceed those contained in the Constitution.
The DA opposes the Bill in its current form for a number of reasons, which include the following: