State dithered on land

LEGAL EXPERT: EXPROPRIATION LAW SHOULD HAVE BEEN PASSED WITH THE CONSTITUTION

- Faizel Patel

A leading legal expert and former member of President Cyril Ramaphosa's advisory panel on land says South Africa should have passed a law to redistribute land equitably when the final constitution was passed.

Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi's remarks come after Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Bill into law, setting new guidelines for land expropriation without compensation.

The Bill, which replaces the Expropriation Act of 1975, allows land expropriation without compensation if it's in the public interest or for a public purpose.

It has upset US President Donald Trump, who claimed that South Africa's expropriation law is aimed at "seizing ethnic minority Afrikaners' agricultural property without compensation".

Ngcukaitobi told Cape Talk Radio Station that of all clauses in the Act, none had generated more heat than Section 12(3), which enables the state to offer "nil compensation" in certain instances.