Trump tweet shows the damage that EWC is doing - IRR
President Donald Trump’s announcement that he has directed his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to ‘study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers’ is another indication of the damage that the reckless handling of South Africa’s ‘land question’ is doing.
Expropriation without compensation (EWC) has become one of the dominant themes in the country’s politics. This has been deliberately driven by the government and ruling party, even though survey evidence has shown that land – particularly in the agrarian sense – is not a priority for South Africa’s people.
Senior politicians, including President Ramaphosa, have repeatedly endorsed the idea of compensation-free seizures of property. Over the past few weeks, this has extended to a commitment to amend Section 25 of the constitution. This is despite the president’s own declaration that nothing in the constitution prevented EWC. This decision was taken before the parliamentary review process into the matter had been completed. That the Bill of Rights should be tampered with in this fashion – for purely political reasons – sets a disturbing precedent.
That neither government nor the ruling party has seen fit to favour the country with a clear sense of what the proposed EWC system will entail has itself become a major concern for business. Based on a string of attempted policy and regulatory changes over the past decade, it is likely to entail significantly enhancing the discretion of the government to intervene in and abridge the property rights of individuals and businesses.
There is no guarantee that expropriations will ultimately be limited to land; once momentum begins to build, it is probably inevitable that they will extend to other spheres of the economy.