Durban - The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal will take its call for a referendum on the expropriation of land without compensation to its national policy conference where it is hoping for support from other provinces.
Party KwaZulu-Natal secretary Super Zuma told Independent Media onSunday that the province had not yet established whether it had the backing of other provinces in its call for the uncompromising stance on land reform and a referendum.
“As the province of KwaZulu-Natal, we should be influencing other provinces, and we are going to engage them with an aim of getting them to support for our proposal,” said Zuma.
He said the province had not started discussing policy issues with other provinces, “therefore how can we be knowing what other provinces are thinking?”
Zuma said even if the issue of the referendum and expropriation was to be adopted at the party’s policy conference to be held in June, it would still have to be approved at the party’s national conference in December.
“The policy conference is not the final arbiter. The policies must be confirmed by the national conference,” he said.
When he introduced the issue of a referendum during the debate of the State of the Province address at the provincial legislature in Pietermaritzburg last week, ANC provincial chairman Sihle Zikalala said the party would discuss the matter internally and also lobby for support from the general public.
“It is important that we should have expropriation of land without compensating the farmers,” Zikalala said.
Zuma said the ANC started two weeks ago to engage branches on the whole matter pertaining to the expropriation of land.
When asked to comment on ANC MP’s recent decision to reject the EFF’s offer of its 6% to have a two-third majority to alter Section 25 of the constitution in order to expropriate land, Zuma said he had expected that “because there is nothing clear when it comes to issues of policy”.
Zuma said the province had yet to establish the national executive committee’s position on the matter.
While the ANC parliamentary chief whip Jackson Mthembu and other MPs differed on the call for expropriation without compensation, party spokesman Zizi Kodwa told The Sunday Times the party MPs should have taken up the EFF’s offer.
“In principle we should have used that opportunity. We could have said the EFF motion is in line with our thinking and articulation of land restitution and then speak to our positions,” Kodwa was reported to have said.
President Jacob Zuma made it clear during the State of the Nation address that the issue of land should be addressed with immediate effect, and that the willing-buyer willing-seller policy had failed.
Zuma also called black political parties to unite behind the issue of land expropriation.