An advisory report on land reform in South Africa has recommended changing the constitution to allow the government to seize land without compensation but only in certain circumstances.
The report by a presidential panel of experts, released on Sunday, poured water on wholesale land seizures without payment – as feared by some farmers, investors and foreign governments.
It recommended that expropriation without compensation be applied under specific circumstances, including abandoned land; land held purely for speculative purposes; land already occupied and used by labor tenants and former labor tenants; and inner city buildings with absentee landlords.
Parliament is due to start debates on proposed changes to the land expropriation bill in October.
“It is important that the Bill must specify much more clearly the meaning of instances that would amount to “nil” compensation,” the panel, appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, said in the report.
South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has repeatedly pledged to accelerate land transfers to the black majority denied ownership rights under apartheid’s segregation laws, but progress has been slow.
Ramaphosa appointed the panel of agricultural economists and practitioners last year to advise the government after the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party started to dominate the land reform debate and tabled a constitutional amendment to allow the government to seize land without compensation.
The report will be key to how the final law will look.
