PETER BRUCE: Muddying the land issue
Any words Ramaphosa and the ANC insert into the constitution now will cause further delay in the actual transfer of land to black people who need it
The land issue is a mess. For 24 years the ruling ANC has not expropriated one single piece of land without compensation. Yet there was President Cyril Ramaphosa suddenly appearing on our TV screens late one night last week to announce that an explicit wording was to be contrived and inserted into our constitution to make clear what most South Africans already know — that the constitution already allows for the expropriation of land without compensation. The reason, Ramaphosa explained, was to make the rights to expropriation without compensation more explicit to “our people”. So here is a guy who is one of the architects of the constitution saying it requires its first change. And it’s purely for party political/populist reasons. There’s no legal reason to change it. Our constitution has merely become a football to be kicked around because the EFF is snapping at the ANC’s ankles and because Ramaphosa doesn’t have the clout now to fight pressure from within his own party to follow t...
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