Land expropriation debate is deterring investment – IRR’s Terence Corrigan

The debate on land reform is heating up as a cross-party Parliamentary committee begins to look at how the Constitution can be changed to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation. This is after the Presidential Panel concluded its report and suggested a watered down version of the original proposal for land expropriation without compensation. The panel stressed that constitutional amendments are not, on their own, the only tools available in order to bring redress to the people who were disposed of land in the past. The Institute for Race Relations has been lobbying against expropriation and the IRR's CEO Frans Cronjé also put a strategy for the agricultural sector on the table on how they could counter the risks of land expropriation. In an interview with BizNews Radio, Terence Corrigan warned that once the Constitution is changed to allow for expropriation of land, other sectors could be targeted. – Linda van Tilburg

Terrence Corrigan said the IRR is not fixated on the land issue, the institute is against the principle of expropriation. He said it is "often phrased in agricultural metaphysics or as a land issue, but once the floodgates are opened, there is a sort of a genie out of the bottle principle and we do not believe it will be confined to land for farming." The institute has seen similar proposals for prescribed assets.

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