COSATU Submission: Expropriation With Out Compensation (Section 25) 04 September 2018

1. COSATU Submission: Expropriation With Out Compensation (Section 25)04 September 2018

2. Introduction • Welcome national and parliamentary debate; • Landless crises: • Informal areas; • Farm workers and labour tenants; • Communal land tenure. • New and emerging farmers’ difficulties; • Pressured agricultural sector; and • Largest non-state employer. • Emotional volatility.

3. Property and Land • Billions (Rands) spent since 1994 on land reform and housing; • Remaining racially skewed land and farm ownership; • Collapse of many new & emerging farmers; • Growth of informal areas; • Evictions of farm workers; and • Lack of communal land tenure security, especially women.

4. Section 25 – Compels Government to • Advance land reform and restitution; • Provide security of rights and tenure to the dispossessed and those denied under apartheid; and • Property rights cannot block this broader transformational mandate.

5. Section 25: Compensation • Current use of the property; • History of the acquisition and use of the property; • Market value of the property; • Extent of state investment and subsidy in improvement of the property; and • Property is not limited to land.

6. Section 25: Compensation • Purpose of the expropriation; • Public interest includes the nation’s commitment to land reform, and to reforms to bring equitable access to all South Africa’s natural resources; • Failure to achieve land reform not the failure of the Constitution; and • Amend if constitutionally necessary for legal clarity.

7. Expropriation Act • COSATU and business support for Act; • Extensive Nedlac and Parliamentary engagements and; • Unnecessary Parliamentary delays; • Correct legislative vehicle; • Reflects values and mandate of Constitution; and • Speeds up court processes and caters for Valuer General.

8. Expropriation Act – Proposed Amendments for Expropriation With Out Compensation • Abandoned land; • Neglected land owned by absentee landlords; • Idle land that is needed for productive public use; • State owned land; and • Land occupied by labour tenants historically.

9. Expropriation Act – Proposed Amendments for Expropriation With Out Compensation • Land who’s value has been unfairly inflated due to massive state investments there or nearby; • Land held to speculative ransom that is needed for productive use; and • Land offered by owner to state as a donation e.g. for land reform etc.

10. Expropriation Act – Proposed Amendments for Expropriation With Out Compensation • Land expropriated during apartheid or colonial eras where market value was not paid to original owner and was not paid for by the current owner; and • Land who’s owner benefited from unfair discriminatory loan during apartheid era e.g. farmer given below market value loan now wanting market value compensation.

11. Expropriation Act – Proposed Amendments for Expropriation With Out Compensation • Agricultural land above land holding limit thresholds support by the Minister for DAFF as envisaged in the Regulation of Land Holdings Bill.

12. Related Delayed Land Reform Legislation • Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill; • Regulation of Land Holding Bill; • Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Bill; and • Communal Land Tenure Bill.