LETTER: Municipalities get the nod to grab land
Expropriation Bill will allow bankrupt municipalities and other government bodies to take transfer of land before they pay for it
As the Institute of Race Relations has pointed out, we can’t trust the ANC on the Expropriation Bill. The cancer in the centre of the bill is that municipalities and other government bodies will be enabled to take transfer of land before they pay for it. We have been fixated on expropriation for nil consideration. We have been misled. That is not the danger.
The danger is that bankrupt municipalities will be allowed — if the bill becomes law — to take transfer and occupation of land (rural and urban) before they pay for it, even if the price is “fair”. As many municipalities cannot even pay Eskom, what chance is there that they would pay landowners? Nil. Of course, the owner could, at great expense, go to court, but you cannot get money out of a stone...
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