SA considers land expropriation

The South African press has reported that an emotional debate took place in the national assembly last week amid signs that the government was considering the outright expropriation of land in the face of drawn-out willing buyer/willing seller price wrangles.

With many South Africans concerned at the lawless land-grab in neighbouring Zimbabwe, all eyes were on the recent public hearings by the portfolio committee on agriculture and land affairs on the pace of land reform. ANC MPs have come out strongly against spending billions of rands compensating farm workers when the government and farmers could not agree on land prices.

"Financial compensation as a form of redress should be discouraged," they claimed, saying it often led to family disputes and fraud. Opposition MPs agreed that land remained "a very emotional issue" in South Africa and warned that legislators should "tread lightly in this minefield".

They particularly objected to a recommendation by the committee that landowners should continue to be classified by race and that the government should prevent foreigners from buying land in South Africa.

Blessing Mphela, the land claims commissioner in Gauteng and North West said the debate was "long overdue", but added that it had not covered any fundamentally new issues. He said one case of expropriation in North West now appeared likely, while others were still being negotiated.

The land involved would be valued at market-related prices according to an agreed formula but this form of dealing with land restitution would only be adopted "under extreme circumstances", Mphela said. This was usually when no price could be agreed on the land earmarked for restitution in terms of an amendment to the Restitution of Land Rights Act passed last year.