LETTER: Distrust basis of expropriation outcry

International Trade Administration Commission head Ayabonga Cawe says the outcry over the Expropriation Act is an overreaction (“Sense of being under siege is difficult to overcome”, February 3).

He believes South Africans — whites in particular — have long viewed themselves as being “under siege”, which has shaped their attitudes to land ownership for generations and made them feel defensive about their possessions.

Cawe is correct that history shapes our instincts. However, South Africans across racial and economic lines do not trust the government. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that in SA, the government has the lowest trust rating across all measured categories, with only 29% of respondents expressing any trust in the state.

The outcry over the Expropriation Act is a rational reaction to a government that is a repeat offender regarding undermining the safety, investment and livelihoods of South Africans. Think of the many land reform projects that have collapsed, the dysfunctional municipalities, deteriorating infrastructure, anaemic investment levels, industries gutted by bad regulation, escalating crime and rising unemployment.

South Africans are reacting rationally when they express alarm at the erosion of property rights under the Expropriation Act. They are being reasonable in demanding security of ownership and a reassurance that market value compensation will be paid if their property is expropriated.

Most South Africans are not constitutional scholars, anxiously parsing the wording of section 25, or closely following the technical debates on expropriation. But they do know what it means when the government finds yet another justification for sacrificing property rights in the “public interest”.

The new Expropriation Act does not just “regularise” the 1975 law it supersedes. Instead, it considerably expands the government’s expropriation powers. As Cawe himself notes, the new act expands the grounds for expropriation beyond “public interest” to include “public purpose” — a vague and elastic justification that does not inspire confidence.

It also gives the government the power to take land without paying for it, on an open-ended list of circumstances, and to expropriate any kind of property — not limited to land — for uncertain compensation, potentially far below market value.

Cawe should not be asking why people feel under siege, but why the state keeps giving them reasons to.

Anlu Keeve
Institute of Race Relations

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