Political ballet in the minefields of land expropriation – John Kane-Berman

CAPE TOWN — The phrase "don't mention the war," from John Cleese's evergreen Fawlty Towers comes to mind on reading IRR policy fellow John Kane-Berman's critique of the former US administration's ambassador to SA, Patrick Gaspard. Kane-Berman says both Gaspard and Ramaphosa wax eloquent about land reform without ever actually saying the words land expropriation without compensation. They daintily pirouette around the elephant in the room, i.e. the populist threat that Ramaphosa has repeatedly made, even while his deputy David Mabuza reassuringly pats the extended hands of the desperately concerned AgriSA and Agbiz, whose members honestly believe they stand to lose everything. While Kane-Berman himself doesn't mention that both Ramaphosa and his top lieutenants have said commercially productive agricultural land won't be touched, his pivotal point perhaps is that the ruling party wants to amend the constitution so it can legally seize land. Forget Ramaphosa's historic big stick and carrot approach. When you review his contradictory political rhetoric on the question, you're witnessing bargaining tactics from the power player in the room. What matters is the goal of the ruling party; to be able to legally seize land. Which leaves current owners beholden to mere verbal assurances. This story courtesy of Politicsweb. – Chris Bateman

By John Kane-Berman*

How odd. Patrick Gaspard, Barrack Obama's erstwhile ambassador in Pretoria, recently treated the readers of the Sunday Times to a diatribe against Donald Trump without mentioning what had led to Mr Trump's tweet about "land and farm seizures and expropriations" in the first place: the repeated threats by Cyril Ramaphosa to expropriate land without compensation. Mr Gaspard told us that Mr Ramaphosa wanted to accelerate land reform, "a long, vexing, and simmering question". Into this "complicated" and "controversial" debate with an "existential importance" for the economy, Mr Trump had "hurled his grenade". There is wide consensus in South Africa favouring "land reform" – whatever that may mean – but the issue with "existential importance" for owners of all kinds of property, and for the future of the free-market economy, is the threat of expropriation without compensation. Mr Trump may have exaggerated but he correctly identified a threat that Mr Gaspard fails to mention. Since the former American ambassador cannot be unaware of this threat, his failure to mention it means he has chosen to be economical with the truth.

With the help of Mr Gaspard, AgriSA, Agbiz, and various equally useful journalists, Mr Ramaphosa is doing a spot of damage control. Perhaps he has been taken aback by the alarm engendered by his expropriation threats.

He thus changes his tune from time to time, depending on the audience. When he does not drop all reference to expropriation without compensation, he smothers it in sweetness and light. For example, an advertisement in Business Day last month had him suggesting that expropriation could apply to "unused land, derelict buildings, purely speculative landholding, labour tenancy, informal settlements, and abandoned inner-city buildings".

Read also: Banks can stop land grabs and save SOEs. Here's how – John Kane-Berman

For the benefit of Ms May, he depicted land reform as "an opportunity to strengthen property rights". On another recent occasion he promised that the proposed amendment to the constitution "will provide certainty to those who own land".

This is a far cry from his statements earlier this year that expropriation without compensation did not count as "taking land from people" since it was "merely restoring land to its original owners", who had been "violently dispossessed of it" by the "original colonial sin" of the Land Acts.

So what now? The property rights of white farmers – supposedly acquired by "original sin" – will be among those to be "strengthened"? Or will they be excluded from "strengthening" and from "certainty" on the grounds that their property originates in "violent dispossession"?

Read also: South Africa's Land Bank warns EWC risks triggering a default

According to Ms May, Mr Ramaphosa had commented that land reform "will not be a smash and grab approach". Maybe not – even though the chaotic South African government may not be able to prevent "smash and grab" encouraged by imprecations against white farmers by Mr Ramaphosa and some of his colleagues.

But dispossession does not have to be carried out by "smash and grab" of the kind that happened in Zimbabwe (often to applause from the African National Congress). It can also be carried out by a lawful process. Even though their planned constitutional amendment may require a 75% majority to get through Parliament, the stated intention of President Ramaphosa and his party is to arm themselves with the power to expropriate white farmers (and in due course no doubt others) without compensation. Those who pretend otherwise are trying to lull everyone into a sense of false comfort. Or they have their own heads in the soil.

• John Kane-Berman is a policy fellow at the IRR, a think-tank that promotes political and economic freedom. If you agree with what you have just read then click here or SMS your name to 32823.