Property, whose property? It has been expropriated!

Free Market Foundation director, Temba Nolutshungu, recently commented to Realestateweb on the Expropriation Bill that has now been introduced into Parliament. A report on his comments is reproduced below as well as links to view the full article and to download the Bill.

The Bill is available at http://www.info.gov.za/gazette/bills/2008/b3-08.pdf

It is no longer a draft Bill but a full-blown Bill that has been introduced into Parliament, that is why the info has to change.

Eustace Davie
Director
Free Market Foundation
Tel: 011 884 0270
Fax: 011 884 5672
Email: fmf@mweb.co.za
Website: www.freemarketfoundation.com




Property: ANC's land expropriation policy slammed

A leading former black consciousness activist has called the race-based policy and ANC resolutions on land policy 'utterly despicable' and 'repugnant' and says the country should focus attention on policies that will help fuel much-needed economic growth instead. As reported in Legalbrief Today last week, the SA Property Owners Association, Sapoa, issued a cautiously-worded statement in a tone of resignation around land expropriation. It said it was of the view that the adoption of the Bill would provide adequate protection for land and property owners in the event of expropriation'. The ruling party wants to see at least one in three farms 'redistributed' over the next five years, among its property-related plans. But according to a Realestateweb report, Temba Nolutshungu, respected Free Market Foundation director and a former black consciousness movement activist of the late 1960s and 1970s, said SA should forget about land expropriation. Land grabs should be 'scrapped alto
gether' and the political leaders
should instead apply their minds to developing policies to help get the economy growing at 8%. Farms that have been handed over on a restitution basis so far are lying fallow in many cases, he noted, which is 'evidence' you can't just hand over commercially productive agricultural land to the inexperienced and expect a positive result. Instead of expropriating land currently in the hands of white farmers, the government should hand over state land to emerging farmers, he suggested. Nolutshungu added that the fact that expropriation is to be conducted on a 'racial basis' was 'a very bad idea'. 'I find it so utterly despicable and repugnant that we can still issue racially discriminatory policies. It is something I feel strongly about. It is not right at all. I can't come to terms with the fact that our statutes reflect racially-oriented policies,' he said.

Full Realestateweb report


Draft expropriation policy paper (PDF file)

http://www.legalbrief.co.za/publication/archives.php?mode=archive&p_id=Legalbrief_Today&issueno=2000&format=html