The FF Plus wants to make it very clear that the Gauteng Premier, Mr David Makhura, is going to burn his fingers if he tries to expropriate land lying idle in Gauteng without compensation. He is busy jumping the gun in this sensitive process. What he said earlier today comes down to the fact that land or buildings in Gauteng that are not occupied or in use will be expropriated without compensation and given away.
Makhura announced that land will be expropriated without compensation with immediate effect so as to test the Constitution. According to him, the time has come to expropriate privately owned land and a task team has already been put together to identify privately owned land lying idle in Gauteng.
By doing this, Makhura is simply trying to cover up the province’s failure to provide proper housing for its residents. The Department of Housing in Gauteng has a backlog of 800 000 houses that must still be built and it is clear that the ANC and Makhura’s promise that all the informal settlements in Gauteng will be a thing of the past by 2019 is not going to realise. That is why he is trying to use the sensitive matter of expropriation without compensation to divert people’s attention away from their own failure.
Clearly, the announcement made by Makhura earlier this year that he will make provincial land available for his “rapid land release programme” has come to nothing and now he is doing everything in his power to try and ensure his political survival.
Makhura is well aware of the fact that the FF Plus has submitted more than 100 000 petitions of protest against the ANC’s proposed amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution. The FF Plus has already submitted these objections to Parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee.
The leader of the FF Plus, Dr Pieter Groenewald, made it very clear that any amendment to the Constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation will be detrimental to South Africa’s economy and that all South Africans will in effect also be deprived of their right of ownership of property.
The FF Plus will make sure that the Premier knows that private property rights are internationally recognised as basic human rights and that these rights must, therefore, be safeguarded by the South African Constitution in accordance with the United Nations’ (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
During his provincial debate in March this year, the FF Plus informed the Premier that the party will do everything in its power, on all three levels of government, to oppose expropriation without compensation.
Read the original article by Philip van Staden in Afrikaans on FF Plus
South Africa Today – South Africa News
