Former president Thabo Mbeki has torn into the ANC’s proposals on the expropriation of land without compensation, warning it would reinforce tribalism and drive away much-needed investment.
Mbeki has penned a 15-page document in which he calls on the party to relook at some of its proposals before parliament on how section 25 of the constitution should be amended in line with its 2017 conference resolution.
The document was sent to the ANC on Friday as a response to the ANC national executive committee meeting held last month, which called for discussions on its proposals on the amendment of the constitution even as they are debated in the National Assembly.
Mbeki’s critique centred on what an ANC-led team has proposed in terms of how parts of the constitution could be amended. Land reform has become SA’s fiercest political battleground in recent years due to the failure of current government policies on the matter.
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Who gets to benefit
The ANC is proposing that the law must be amended to allow a person or communities dispossessed of land before June 19 1913 due to “past racially discriminatory laws or practices” to get equitable redress provided it was reasonable and within the state’s available resources.
The proposal further said such restitution must not undermine future investment in the economy, agricultural production and food security.
Mbeki said the talk about “dispossessed land before 19 June 1913" in the SA case meant “dispossessed land” since the 1650s, when the Dutch colonial settlers started seizing land from the Khoi. He further took issue with the rational put forward that constitutional amendments relating to 1913 intended to extend the provision of redress to communities.
He argued that the “communities” referred to by the ANC “can only be the nationalities/tribes, which still remained with a certain level of cohesion” before the displacements of indigenous people and urban migration.
“This would mean the reintroduction of a very regressive tribalism in South Africa, with the land portioned out to various nationalities/tribes. It is obvious that under no circumstances would the ANC agree to such an eventuality, which would exactly be the result of accepting the constitutional amendment indicated,” Mbeki said.
Developed or improved land
Another proposal that Mbeki took issue with stated that where land and improvements thereon are expropriated for purposes of land reform, the amount of compensation may be nil.
Mbeki argued that this was wrong as it went beyond the initial demand for the expropriation of land that was dispossessed.
“The original demand was for expropriation of land on the basis that it had been expropriated without compensation through the process of settler colonialism and it was also stated that in carrying out such expropriation without compensation ‘we must ensure that we do not undermine future investment in the economy (and) not cause harm to other sectors of the economy’,” he said.
Mbeki pointed out that even the Zimbabwean government had made an undertaking to compensate white farmers for improvement on land when it embarked on its land reform programme in the early 2000s.
Mbeki insisted that the ANC had to abandon the proposal as it would drive critical investment away. He said owners of capital would see the constitutional amendment “as opening the door to any government to expropriate any property without compensation. This would be a very serious disincentive to investment, which our country cannot afford.”
But one of the foremost writers on land, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, said Mbeki could not use the argument to block any form of expropriation without compensation even for land that is not being used or even for buildings in the inner city, which have been hijacked.
“Where I think he’s right is that we have not done enough to give effect to the framing of the constitution and before we have exercised it, we then jumped to getting an amendment,” Ngcukaitobi said.
Ngcukaitobi blamed what he called the “inconsistencies between government policy and the constitutional framework” on SA’s slow land reform.
“You’ve got a constitutional framework which doesn’t guarantee compensation at particular levels, you’ve got state policy [of willing buyer, willing seller] which guarantees compensation. Instead of scrapping state policy you are now attacking the constitution,” Ngcukaitobi said.
Going against the Freedom Charter
Mbeki also accused the ANC of slowly changing its posture and character away from the Freedom Charter towards African nationalism in its approach to the land question.
He said the Freedom Charter, which was adopted by the party, says land shall be shared among those who work it. He, however, said the ANC 2017 resolution seemed to suggest that the party had adopted a view that was advanced by the PAC decades ago before breaking away from the ANC. He took issue with the party repeatedly stating “we must return land to the people”.
Mbeki said this meant that the ANC was repudiating the demand contained in the Freedom Charter – We must return the land to those who work it!
Mathole Motshekga, National Assembly chair of the constitutional review committee, said Mbeki’s critique was an important contribution to the land debate.
“We will consider it, but at the moment the debate is still on. His contribution has come at the right time and we will look into that,” Motshekga said.
DA MP Annelie Lotriet said her party agreed with Mbeki, as he highlighted problems with tampering with property rights.
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