Tag: landgrab

Malema threatens white land owners

South Africa’s white farmers should stop being sensitive and participate in critical debates on the transformation of the agricultural landscape and other emotive issues, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema told a forum of agricultural roleplayers in the Western Cape on Wednesday night.

Speaking at a dinner hosted by the forum – which calls itself “Gesprek” – Malema moved to allay white fears on “expropriation without compensation”.

“As long as it’s a productive farm, we don’t have to interfere with the production on that piece of land,” Malema said.

“When there is part of a land which is not used for agriculture purposes, we would be having a problem. All we are saying is the land must be used. It must not lie idle.”

But, he wasted little time before warning farmers that they needed to play their part in empowering black people.

“You owe it to the people who have been oppressed… to mentor them,” Malema said.

“If you love this country, you must love its people. Say to them ‘I’m volunteering my services. I’m going to make sure the land is used productively and used to feed the children of this community’.”

Those who did not want to contribute to transforming the sector were free to pack up and leave.

“There is no white man… no white woman who is going to be driven into the sea,” he assured the farmers.

“Feel free to leave, but you would miss out. You will miss us. We won’t miss you.”

Source: IOL

EFF stages landgrab in Ballito

A group of EFF members staged a land grab on prime real estate in Ballito on Sunday.

The seaside town, north of Durban, is home to some of the most opulent developments in KwaZulu-Natal.

A well-placed police source with knowledge of the incident, who could not be named as he is not authorised to speak to the press, confirmed that two groups of EFF members had attempted to stake their claim on a tract of farm land on the outskirts of the town.

“This morning we had an incident with two groups of EFF members who tried to occupy a piece of the land which flanks the N2 near the entrance to Ballito. Police officers were called to the scene,” he said.

“They were intent on claiming the piece of land which belongs to a local farmer who eventually came to the hilltop where they all were,” the source said.

“The owner of the land spoke to them and everyone agreed to convene a meeting in two weeks. There is a process that needs to be followed with these land claims, you cannot just show up and expect to start building,” he said.

Louis Kotze, of security firm Ballito Hawks, confirmed that the attempted land grab was ongoing.

Source: News24

Mugabe defends Zuma

President Jacob Zuma was defended from an unexpected quarter on Wednesday, when visiting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe urged the South African media to “stop tarnishing him”.

“You can tarnish me – I don’t care,” he said at a media conference after he had met Zuma for official talks on his first state visit to South Africa since 1994.

“We are Africans. We don’t tarnish our leaders,” he said, adding that while political opponents could have disagreements, they should support national unity.

Though Mugabe sniped at his old enemies such as former British prime minister Tony Blair and Western governments more generally, he also showed flashes of surprising humility.

He and his ministers had exchanged some very harsh words when Zuma was trying to mediate an agreement between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) a few years ago. But on Wednesday he was full of praise for Zuma, congratulating him for his government’s efforts to resolve the recent political dispute in Lesotho and for its peacekeeping work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He also thanked Pretoria for its tolerance of illegal Zimbabwean immigrants, “as our people have really offended… by jumping the border and disturbing your social systems.”

He said this problem had been discussed in the talks on Wednesday, “and we said we must find ways of controlling the movement of people which have not been sanctioned”.

And he referred to South Africa as Zimbabwe’s “elder brother” economically, appealing to it to help Zimbabwe add value to its extensive natural resources.

South Africa rolled out the red carpet for Mugabe, receiving him with full honours on only his second state visit, and raising diplomatic relations to the highest level.

In his long and rambling speech at the media conference, Mugabe also ironically thanked South African journalists for giving him so much publicity “as a real dictator”.

But he insisted that he wasn’t such a dictator after all, citing the way he had let his old enemy, the late Ian Smith, who was the prime minister of the former Rhodesia, keep not only his own farm, but also his father’s farm.

Source: IFS

Expropriation Bill is unconstitutional

The new Expropriation Bill of 2015 was recently released by the minister of public works, Thulas Nxesi, and is due to be enacted into law this year. The 2015 Bill is just as unconstitutional as its predecessors of 2008 and 2013. It still gives the State the power to take ownership and possession of property of virtually any kind by notice to the owner – and without a prior court order confirming the constitutional validity of the expropriation.

The Bill also puts great pressure on expropriated owners to accept whatever amounts of compensation the State might offer. Particularly telling is a clause saying owners will be deemed to have accepted these amounts unless they sue for more within two months. Given the high cost of litigation, most people will be reluctant to risk this.

The Government claims the 2015 Bill will cure the constitutional defects in the current Expropriation Act of 1975, but this is simply not true. Mr. Nxesi’s Bill should thus be abandoned and replaced by a new amendment bill that is fully compliant with the Constitution. Such a bill can easily be crafted by amending the current Act in three key ways, as this issue of @Liberty explains.IRR_@Liberty_1-2015_-_4_March_2015 (1)

ANC approves land expropriation bill

The government moved closer to passing a law that would allow the state to expropriate white-owned land and assets on Thursday.

The cabinet approved the draft land expropriation bill and will now wait for parliament to approve it.

The bill seeks to replace legislation dating from 1975 and “align the overarching legislation governing the expropriation of property to the values and provisions of the constitution”.

The government tried in 2008 to pass a land and assets expropriation law but it was withdrawn after its constitutionality was questioned.

Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin said the current version of the law recognised the jurisdiction of the courts in determining compensation.

The bill also gives other organs of state powers to expropriate, but the government can table limitations once the bill is approved.

The government also approved the establishment of a state-owned property firm that will manage the state’s property portfolio, which is valued at over R530-billion.

Cronin said the National Treasury will also be approached to help capitalise the new State Property Management Agency to the level where it can employ experts such as property lawyers, economists and actuaries and offer them salaries that match those offered in the private sector.

Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi said the agency would be the flagship of his department.

He said the agency would be the largest property company in the country.

The agency was established to enhance the management of land, government buildings and other property assets , including the property portfolios of municipalities and provincial governments, Nxesi said.

Source: timeslive.co.za

Modise bought farm for boyfriend

Abdul Mogale, is Thandi Modise’s former boyfriend and an ANC councillor for the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality, neighbouring farmers told amaBhungane.

The black former ANC premier Modise has been charged with the death of up to 80 animals and euthanasing of a further 117 by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) after they had been denied food and water for two weeks.

Modise purchased the 488 hectare farm with a R4.9-million Land Bank loan in 2011 for her black boyfriend say insiders.

Farmworkers aslo claim they had been underfed and underpaid, and that they had begged for food on the black-owned farm.

The former romantic relationship between Modise and Mogale was confirmed this week by Modise’s spokesperson Neo Moepi.

Long-term neglect and plundering of the farm was evident when amaBhungane visited the farm.

The ANC is currently pushing for laws to disown white farmers, much like in Zimbabwe where the black landgrab has resulted in famine.

According to the SPCA and a well-informed veterinary source, the pigs had been underfed for longer than two weeks.

Neighbours also said that the cattle on the farm had gathered at the electric fence around the farm, well before the SPCA’S intervention, desperate for food and water.

The desperate starving pigs could be heard squeeling for water from kilometres away.

Andries Venter from the SPCA said various things pointed to long-term neglect that would be probed for a possible criminal case against Modise. “There is definite evidence of overall neglect that has gone on for months,” he said.

The water pumps were out of order and amaBhungane saw fences in disrepair. According to Daan van den Berg, the farm’s previous owner whom amaBhungane interviewed this week, the pump failure was because of an electrical short circuit that the SPCA asked him to rectify.

Modise suggested that the water and electricity supply to the farm had been cut off, saying that she wanted an investigation to determine who had done this.

Previous owner Van den Berg said that on two occasions shortly after Modise bought the farm, Mogale had asked him to source feed for the pigs. Mogale did not explain why he could not source the feed himself.

Van den Berg said the tractor and implements he sold with the farm did not seem to have been used for years.

Source: M&G

Zulus make largest land claim

King Goodwill Zwelithini and other traditional leaders are compiling a multi-billion rand land claim that could be South Africa’s largest to date, according to report.

“From what we have gathered thus far…[the area] goes outside the boundaries of the [KwaZulu-Natal] province to the Eastern Cape, Free State and part of Mpumulanga,” said Judge Jerome Ngwenya, chair of the Ingonyama Trust, which would help with the claim the City Press reported on Sunday.

Ngwenya said research was underway to determine the exact extent of the claim. The claim would cover land taken from 1838 onwards.

However, according to land claims legislation only land taken away since 1913 could be claimed, which could still make the claim “very substantial”.

Ngwenya said the claim was not aimed at uprooting people or causing dispossession.

“Where restitution is no longer feasible there must be an alternative in the form of royalties or financial compensation.”

Zwelithini and other traditional leaders have been attending workshops to compile the claim.

The deadline for submission has been set for March 2015.

Source: TimesLive