View Topic

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-land-exproriation/vote-in-south-africas-parliament-moves-land-reform-closer-idUSKCN1GB22I

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa took a step on Tuesday to hasten the transfer of land from white to black owners when parliament backed a motion seeking to change the constitution to allow land expropriation without compensation.

The ruling African National Congress has long promised reforms to redress racial disparities in land ownership and the subject remains highly emotive more than two decades after the end of apartheid. Whites still own most of South Africa’s land following centuries of brutal colonial dispossession.

Tuesday’s motion was brought by the radical left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party but was supported by the ANC, which controls almost two-thirds of the parliament compared with EFF’s 6 percent.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said after his inauguration two weeks ago that he would speed up the transfer of land to black people although he stressed that food production and security must be preserved.

Launching a debate on the motion in parliament, EFF leader Julius Malema said “it was time for justice” on the land issue...

EXPROPRIATION
The official opposition Democratic Alliance party (DA) opposed the motion, arguing that changes to Section 25 will undermine property rights and scare off potential investors.

The DA’s Thandeka Mbabama told parliament that expropriation without compensation was a way to divert attention from the failure by successive ANC-led governments to get to grips with the issue. Corruption and lack of farmer training and capacity remain obstacles to land redistribution...

Among the main criticisms leveled at government’s land reform policy over the years has been that many farms transferred to emerging black farmers lay fallow and unproductive.

Land expropriations would trigger legal challenges, said Ralph Mathekga, an independent political analyst...

Land redistribution certainly makes sense theoretically, but I don't see this going well, especially under a government with a history of corruption. Many of the poorer whites have no history of property ownership, after all, and if not managed properly, they could lose any property that they've worked to have. And with the agricultural sector being a rather minor sector of the economy, I'm not sure about the economic benefits either, nor the opportunities it would present to blacks who do receive farmland as part of this proposal.

Thoughts?

How much land is owned by white farmers compared to black farmers?

Like, if it's to break up white people holding disproportionately more land than black due to the Apartheid, then I can understand it, but just straight out expropriating it is a pretty easy way toward disaster.

It's a ploy to win votes. That's it. It brings to mind Zimbabwe, for good reasons. The land that has already been transferred was misused, which is part of the reason this recent draught fucked us so badly. In Zimbabwe, they took the land by force, and the country fell into ruin, as starvation took hold and the economy went to shit.

Black Economic Empowerment has also never been used as intended, instead leading to the cronies of the guy in power scoring all the land, tenders, businesses etc, not the black majority.

Moreover, the Afrikaner took land that was first taken by the Zulus and Xhosas, from the San people. So those groups have no more right to it than we do.

And then we get to the part where the majority of farm owners are new, and paid for it with their own money. They didn't inherit the land from their families, in most instances.

So yeah. This is also going to ramp up the ongoing boer genocide to the next level.

This is going to end poorly.