Unconquering the nation: EFF MPs forge ahead with land expropriation motion

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) will today lead a motion in Parliament for land expropriation without compensation. During President Cyril Ramaphosa’s maiden state of the nation address, he said that the land redistribution programme would be accelerated “not only to redress a grave historical injustice, but also to bring more producers into the agricultural sector and to make more land available for cultivation”.

“Guided by the resolutions of the 54th national conference of the governing party, this approach will include the expropriation of land without compensation,” Ramaphosa said.

During the Democratic Alliance leader’s state of the nation address reply, in response to Ramaphosa’s land expropriation plans, Mmusi Maimane said that expropriation of land without compensation was “incompatible”.

“But we absolutely cannot have this if farmers do not know if or when their land will be taken from them without any compensation. Expropriation of land without compensation is incompatible with a growing, flourishing economy. You can have one or the other, but never both,” Maimane said.

In order to try and help fast-track their cause, Malema has called for Section 25 of the Constitution to be amended, in order to allow land expropriation without compensation to take place.

It currently says that property may be expropriated only in terms of law of general application for a public purpose or in the public interest and, subject to compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court.

The draft motion, which was tabled by the EFF’s Floyd Shivambu, called for putting together an ad hoc committee to review and amend Section 25 of the constitution in order to allow the state to expropriate land in the public interest, without compensation.

EFF leader Julius Malema delivered the draft resolution almost exactly a year ago, on February 28 2017, when he said that South Africa remained a “conquered nation”.

“We remain a conquered nation even when we claim to have democracy. We remain a conquered nation because white monopoly capital still owns the means of production and the centre of that is the land question,” Malema said.

This was also when he proposed to the National Assembly to set up the multiparty committee in order to investigate the possibility of land expropriation without compensation.

“The majority of our people say South Africa belongs to them, yet they do not have proof to show that indeed South Africa belongs to them because many of them do not even know how a title deed looks like,” Malema said during last year’s address.

The motion will be tabled in Parliament at 2pm today.