Zuko Komisa
On 23 January 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Bill into law, repealing the pre-democratic Expropriation Act of 1975.
The bill aligns expropriation laws with the Constitution and outlines the ways in which governmental entities may expropriate land for a variety of public purposes.
The bill has been the subject of parliamentary discussion and public consultation for five years and was opposed by the DA, FF+ and some civil society groups.
Point of View with Phemelo Motene discusses the bill with lawyer and author Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi.
Listen to the full conversation here:
According to Adv. Ngcukaitobi who is the authour of The Land is Ours the Expropriation Bill allows for expropriation without compensation in certain instances where it is deemed to be in the public interest.
“The concept of expropriation is an old concept, and in South Africa it is more than 200 years old. This is how the British Government acquired land when it wanted to use it for public activities. This is how the union government from 1910 acquired land and more specifically and more recently, this is how the apartheid government land. The 1975 Expropriation Act was designed to allow the apartheid governement to create homelands,” said Ngcukaitobi.
This provision has been met with criticism from some, who argue that it could lead to the arbitrary expropriation of property and damage the country’s economy.
The bill has been approved by both houses of Parliament and signed into law by the President Ramaphosa in spite of these reservations. It is anticipated to go into effect in the upcoming months.
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