Legislation: MPs silent on revised draft Expropriation Bill

A revised draft Expropriation Bill approved by Cabinet on 13 December for release into the public domain for further comment was not mentioned during yesterday’s meeting of the ad hoc committee established by the National Assembly to initiate and introduce legislation amending section 25 of the Constitution – with the aim of explicitly providing for expropriation without compensation for land reform purposes, lest anyone should still be wondering. This, notes Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch, tends to suggest either that committee members are not aware of Cabinet’s decision or it has been agreed behind the scenes that nobody should ask when the revised draft Bill is expected to be published. Given that the first revised draft (released in December 2018) proposed a list of circumstances in which the expropriation of land and landed property for nil compensation might be appropriate, the ongoing silence of all political parties represented in the committee beggars belief.

Yet consensus was quickly reached yesterday on extending the deadline for public comment on the draft Constitution 18th Amendment Bill to the end of February – and that the media statement announcing this should explain the purpose of the commentary period in layman’s terms. According to parliamentary support staff, many of the submissions received to date appear to have missed the point. This should not have come as a surprise. Thus far, among mainstream media reporters only the Daily Maverick’s Marianne Merten has attempted to explain the draft Bill’s purpose and context with any degree of accuracy – and even she appears to have overlooked Cabinet’s approval of a revised draft Expropriation Bill for a second round of public comment. According to Merten, ‘as far as is known’ the document is still before the National Economic Development and Labour Council.

A 17 December press release on the Cabinet meeting four days earlier clearly states otherwise. However, since the meeting took place on Friday 13th perhaps the government official responsible for writing it made a mistake? Perhaps there will be no further consultations and the Bill is instead ready for tabling in Parliament? Whatever the case, even if every single MP from each of the parties represented in Parliament was unaware of the press release, surely at least one vigilant journalist spotted it? Apparently not. It was, after all, the ‘silly season’. Yet the sensitive issue of land expropriation without compensation and the draft Bill expected to clarify when this might reasonably be justifiable has still not attracted the level of attention it undoubtedly merits – seven weeks after being approved by Cabinet and two weeks after South Africans fortunate enough to have jobs and still on holiday eventually returned to their desks.

As Legalbrief Today has repeatedly reported (apparently to no avail), the statement on Cabinet’s final meeting for 2019 confirmed – among other things – that the version of the draft Expropriation Bill released over a year ago for comment has since been ‘enhanced’ by ‘inputs’ from ‘extensive consultation’ with members of the public and ‘different formations’. ‘Once passed into law, it will provide uniform procedures to be followed by departments and other organs of state across all three spheres of government when ‘effecting … expropriation’. Since it is inextricably linked to the draft Constitution 18th Amendment Bill, one cannot help but wonder why taxpayers tolerate this level of incompetence (or, possibly, even skulduggery) on the part of their representatives in Parliament, the lowliest of whom earn a whopping R95 245 per month plus benefits (Africa Check).