President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday signed the Expropriation Bill into law, setting new guidelines for land expropriation without compensation. Image: iStock
Several political parties have voiced strong opposition and threatened legal action following the signing of the Expropriation Bill into law.
President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Bill into law on Thursday, setting new guidelines for land expropriation without compensation.
The Bill, which replaces the Expropriation Act of 1975, allows land expropriation without compensation if it’s in the public interest or for a public purpose.
Although the Bill was adopted by the National Assembly in 2020, the DA, Freedom Front Plus (FF+), and some civil society groups opposed it.
On Thursday, the DA reiterated its opposition to the Expropriation Bill signed into law by Ramaphosa.
The party’s Dean Macpherson will be responsible for enforcing the Expropriation Act as minister of public works and infrastructure in the Government of National Unity (GNU).
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“While the DA recognises that the Constitution allows for acts of redress and restitution, including land reform, we have serious reservations about the procedure as well as important substantive aspects of the Bill,” DA MP Willie Aucamp said.
“We are in discussions with our legal team to formulate our case,” he said.
ActionSA said it is also considering legal action in response to the bill’s signing.
Spokesperson Matthew George said the party believed this was another example of the ANC’s “relentless push for destructive policies enabled by the ongoing capitulation of its GNU partners on critical matters that threaten the future of South Africa.”
“From the dangerously flawed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme to the implementation of the controversial BELA Act, the continued entrenchment of failed BBBEE policies, and the expansion of an already bloated Cabinet, this government has come to represent the continuation of the very misgovernance that has brought South Africa to its knees.”
The uMkhonto weSizwe party (MK) “vehemently” rejected signing the Expropriation Bill into law.
Spokesperson Sipho Tyira said the legislation, “disguised as a solution to South Africa’s land question, is nothing but a continuation of injustice and a betrayal of our people’s struggles for true land restitution.”
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“The Expropriation Bill, by limiting land restitution to land dispossessed after 19 June 1913, deliberately entrenches the theft of land that began with the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck on 6 April 1652.
“It ignores the dispossession, violence and destruction of African livelihoods that occurred over more than two centuries before the infamous 1913 Land Act,” Tyira said.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) also opposed the signing of the bill into law.
The red beret said the Bill provides “no radical departure from the past.”
“It merely aligns the country’s expropriation laws with the 1996 Constitution. Previously, expropriation was governed in terms of the Expropriation Act of 1976.”
The Good Party, meanwhile, has welcomed the signing of the Bill into law.
Good Party secretary-general Bret Herron said: “The Bill is a “much-needed improvement on the 1975 Act.”
“Land dispossession, the original sin, has been so inadequately addressed by land reform policies since the demise of apartheid. South Africa needs both the tools and political will to set this straight. The sustainability of the constitutional democracy depends on it.”
The ANC also “warmly welcomed” the bill’s signing into law and described it as a significant “milestone in South Africa’s transformation agenda.”
The party’s national spokesperson, Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, said the bill was a “direct response” to the needs of millions of South Africans who have been excluded from land ownership and access to natural resources for far too long.
“This momentous achievement reinforces the ANC’s dedication to addressing the persistent legacy of colonial dispossession and apartheid spatial planning, ensuring that the land and resources of South Africa are used to benefit the majority of its people.”
Rise Mzansi also welcomed Ramaphosa’s decision to sign the Expropriation Bill – passed by the 6th Parliament – into law.
The party contends that when expropriation is correctly applied, especially in the instance of public housing and rural development, “the issues of spatial justice and spatial planning must be taken into account.”
The Presidency said the Bill allows local, provincial and national authorities “to expropriate land in the public interest for varied reasons that seek, among others, to promote inclusivity and access to natural resources”.
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