Johannesburg - The long-stalled land reform programme is set to accelerate when parliament reconvenes, with the controversial Expropriation Bill set to come before the House early in the new term.
In his January 8 ANC statement President Jacob Zuma told thousands of party members and supporters in Cape Town that there would be no going back on the land reform programme.
Deputy Minister of Public Works Jeremy Cronin told Independent Newspapers this week that the Expropriation Bill was now with Parliament, and would be discussed soon. He hoped the bill would be approved before year-end.
The bill, which has farming lobby groups up in arms, calls for the expropriation of land for “public purpose” or in “the public interest”.
Cronin said expropriation would be done in line with the constitution and accompanied by compensation for the expropriated land. Compensation should be fair and equitable, he said.
The Bill was approved by Cabinet last November and has been submitted in Parliament. It would be tabled before the portfolio committee on public works during the first quarter of the year, either in late February or early March, he said.
The bill was first introduced in 2008 but was withdrawn after complaints that certain sections were unconstitutional.
“When we got to government we revived the process of drafting it,” said Cronin, adding that the drafting took place in 2012.
The Bill was passed on to the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) for multi-stakeholder consultation. There it stalled for nearly two years. The new Bill deals with some of the areas of concern, including compensation.
The deputy minister said the state would not expropriate property or identify a piece of land for expropriation without any compensation.
That would be in violation of the Constitution, he said.
However, he added that the amount of compensation did not have to be market-based.
This was a law of general application and the Bill did not take away powers of Premiers, Ministers and municipalities to expropriate land. “We are saying that before expropriation a government entity must investigate whether expropriation is required. Having done that you need to issue a notice of intention. Those people (whose land is expropriated) must then respond,” he said.
This process would give all parties involved time to deal with expropriation before it is effected.
The deputy minister admitted that the pace of the land reform programme has been slow in the country. He cautioned, however, that the Bill must not be seen as a panacea for all land reform problems in South Africa.
“We have cleaned up things, but it’s not different from the original draft. I am optimistic it should be done before the end of the year. It had a successful passage through Nedlac,” said Cronin.
Political Bureau