JOHANNESBURG – Citizens of South Africa should not be nervous about the ruling African National Congress’s decision to seek land expropriation without compensation, said party president Cyril Ramaphosa.
“Land is a very broad, as well as a complex issue and it has to be handled very delicately because around land there kis quite a lot of emotion,” said Ramaphosa.
“We will have a workshop or a conference on land and look at all its various aspects and beyond that we will come up with a clear policy or direction on how this will be handled.”
At its conference in December, the ANC decided that it would propose amendments to the Constitution to seize land without compensation to speed up the process of giving black people more land after they were disposed during white rule. The party further explained that it will only do this in a manner that doesn’t harm the economy, food security and agricultural production.
White farmers in the country own almost three-quarters of the country’s agricultural land, that is according to a land audit by Agri SA published last year. Ramaphosa said that he would like a study of farms that have been reclaimed or redistributed to black South Africans since 1994.
“The real issue, though, is that most of the redistributed land is lying derelict at the moment. It’s not being worked.” He said.
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