The attack on property rights: Legislative onslaught on South Africans’ property rights reaches new heights.

Dear fellow South African

On 7 September 2022, during a virtual meeting, the Parliamentary legal advisory team took the Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Infrastructure through the final version of the Expropriation Bill, and members voted on the Bill, clause-by-clause.

Their report, following said meeting, was submitted and accepted today, 20 September 2022, and will consequently be sent to the National Assembly for its acceptance. This means that the Expropriation Bill is nearing the final stages to be enacted as law. Although the IFP, the ACDP and the DA are against the EWC Bill in its current form, the ANC holds the majority seats in the National Assembly, which does not bode well for our hopes to block the adoption of this destructive Bill.

NEASA has commented on the mammoth threat of this Bill to South Africa’s property laws, social wellbeing and economy as a whole, when invited to do so during the first public participation procedures, as well as on numerous occasions thereafter via newsletters and press statements. An active campaign was run by NEASA, constantly highlighting the vast and devastating consequences of this Bill to South Africa.

What should be intensely concerning and unsettling to all South Africans, is not only the Expropriation Bill, but the possible dispensation being created by this Bill, in conjunction with the Land Court Bill, the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution and other existing pieces of legislation such as the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act.

This collective drive will ensure that the Government has the power to take ‘custodianship’ of any and all property under an undefined guise of ‘public benefit or interest’, which includes the never-ending reiteration of land reform – all without compensation being compulsory. This might result in massive landgrabs, with the EFF constantly fuelling the fire of unlawful occupation, with property owners facing an up-hill battle to protect their property rights without governmental support.

South Africans need to take note of the ANC’s ill-conceived drive to ruin the South African property regime, which is the cornerstone of any hope of maintaining a prosperous economy. Should this socialist agenda succeed, it will cause irreparable damage to our economy and ‘shut the door’ to any possible growth.

Should this Bill be passed, the only avenue that remains will be an extensive legal challenge on constitutional grounds.