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Expropriation without Compensation: South African “Unity” Government Passes Land Grab Law

January 31, 2025

South African Farmer as depicted in the music video “Die Land”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed a bill into law that will allow the government to seize property from farmers based on their skin color. Farmers’ rights organization AfriForum vowed to fight the Expropriation Bill in court, and the second-largest ruling party threatened to leave the coalition.

So-called “Expropriation without Compensation” has been debated in South Africa for many years, as the left-wing African National Congress (ANC) party complained that the majority of land is still in the hands of white farmers. In reality, the largest share of land in South Africa (14%) is owned by the government. On Jan. 23,  President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Bill into law:

“Local, provincial and national authorities will use this legislation to expropriate land in the public interest for varied reasons that seek, among others, to promote inclusivity and access to natural resources.” The law expressly allows the government to take away farms if “the expropriating authority has without success attempted to reach an agreement with the owner or holder of a right in property for the acquisition thereof on reasonable terms.”

Non-white Landowners own 26.7% of agricultural land and control more than 46% of South Africa’s agricultural potential, News 24 reported. “Twice as much land has been transferred to black entrepreneurs and farmers through ordinary commercial purchases than the state has managed to buy for black owners as part of its land redistribution programme,” a study found.

South Africa has been governed by a “Government of National Unity” (GNU) since the ANC lost its absolute majority in 2024, which it held since the end of Apartheid in 1994. The ANC currently rules together with the second-largest party, the reform-oriented Democratic Alliance, the majority Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), and the right-wing Patriotic Alliance (PA).

Now, that coalition is in danger of falling apart after less than one year.

DA Leader John Steenhuisen said that recent weeks have made it increasingly clear that the ANC “has lost interest in honoring its side of the relationship.” The ANC had “taken to openly disrespecting partners and undermining the trust upon which any coalition government is built.”

In his statement at the ANC’s January 8 anniversary, President Ramaphosa was quoted as saying that although the ANC failed to secure more than 50 percent in the elections, “the ANC is still in charge,” Steenhuisen said, calling Ramaphosa’s behavior “immature.”

Steenhuisen chided the ANC Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi for “declaring war” on the Government of National Unity at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Motsoaledi told world leaders he is fighting a “war” against the people of South Africa.

“This is not how mature colleagues behave,” Steenhuisen said, calling it “arrogant and disrespectful.”

Minority civil rights organization AfriForum stated it will launch “substantial legal action to protect private property rights” in South Africa “in the event that the government targets property for expropriation without compensation.”

“AfriForum will do everything in its power to protect citizens against expropriation without compensation. We seem to be the last real lines of defense left,” said AfriForum spokesman Ernst van Zyl, stating the government “has declared war on private property owners with the signing of this Bill into law.”.

AfriForum today announced a three-point plan to fight the Expropriation Act at a media conference in Centurion: “Wherever the undermining of private property rights has occurred, such as in Zimbabwe and Venezuela, it has had catastrophic economic consequences. We must therefore use every option available to us in our resistance against this destructive law,” said AfriForum spokesman Van Zyl.

On Jan, 24, the ANC government also proposed a 100 billion Rand ($5.361 billion), slush fund or “Transformation Fund” for “economic redress and inclusive growth” following the racist quotas of the so-called Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act, which obligates the government to “increase the effective economic participation of black-owned and managed enterprises, including small, medium, and micro enterprises and cooperatives, and enhance their access to financial and non-financial support.”

B-BBEE are essentially race quotas for all South African businesses and ownership that serve as a gargantuan self-enrichment program for corrupt ANC officials.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was a union activist all his career and is accused of having ordered the police massacre of 34 striking miners at the Marikana mines 2012. He is now one of Africa’s wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth of $450 million.

South Africa currently has over 141 race laws, of which at least 116 came into effect after the advent of “democracy” in South Africa in 1994. AfriForum has published a detailed report on racist legislation in South Africa, available here.

The government has also passed the so-called BELA law (Basic Education Laws Amendment), which gives the government the right to regulate Afrikaans-language schools. AfriForum has called the BELA Bill “an attempt at cultural ethnic cleansing by the ANC government,” as the implementation of the Bill “will enable the destruction of a linguistic and cultural community’s schools, thereby jeopardising the group’s cultural existence.”

Afrikaans schools, monuments and institutions are under constant attack in South Africa. English and Afrikaner place names have already been largely eliminated and Afrikaans has been banned as a language at university level. The civil rights organizations Solidarity, AfriForum and the Solidarity Support Centre for Schools (SCS) have started legal action against the BELA Act.

You can support the AfriForum campaign against expropriation at www.onteiening.co.za.

AfriForum’s Ernst Roets on South Africa’s Expropriation Bill:

 

Solidarity Movement: Meet the Afrikaners

 Ernst Roets: How the Afrikaners are making a comeback 30 years after the ANC took power

 

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