Key topics
- Trump’s warning highlights ANC’s threat to private property rights in South Africa.
- The Expropriation Act enables state expropriation without compensation for property.
- ANC’s intentions to violate property rights face increased international scrutiny.
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By Ernst van Zyl*
This week the chickens finally came home to roost for the ANC and their extremist, destructive policies. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, took to social media and put the South African government on notice regarding their latest attack against private property. Furthermore, Trump alluded to the South African government’s malicious targeting of specific groups with their policies. Disturbingly, many in the media breathlessly rushed to the defence of the government, shamelessly gaslighting the public about the ANC’s intentions with the Expropriation Act. I therefore take it upon myself to provide you with the ANC’s stated intentions, because the captured commentariat of South Africa have failed to do so.
In 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the ANC had officially resolved to amend the Constitution to “explicitly allow for Land Expropriation without compensation.” In 2021 this amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution failed to pass in the National Assembly. The ANC failed to get the required two-thirds majority. The main reason was because the EFF demanded that it must enable full state custodianship of property, while the ANC only proposed that state custodianship be applicable to “certain land” within the context of expropriation. AfriForum warned at the time that the fight to defend property rights in South Africa is not over by a long shot, and that these rights will likely be threatened again in the future.
In December 2021, after the attempt to amend the Constitution failed, then Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, stated, “Changing the Constitution was just one instrument we could have used,” “The matter is now ended. We will now use our simple majority to pass laws that will allow for expropriation without compensation.” Lamola was referring to, among other things, the Expropriation Bill. President Ramaphosa echoed these sentiments when he had stated in a January 2022 address that, “The ANC will implement its resolution on the expropriation of land without compensation despite the refusal of other parties in Parliament.”
The Expropriation Bill, which President Ramaphosa signed into law in 2025, was published and gazetted in October 2020. This Bill, now an Act, enables expropriation with “nil” compensation, which is simply another way of saying no compensation. The Act also empowers any state organ or department to expropriate any private property. This power is not limited to land. In the past week, many legal experts and analysts tried to gaslight the public by arguing that “nil compensation” does not mean “no compensation”. The ANC, however, have been crystal clear about what they understand “nil” compensation to mean.
In 2024, Deputy President Paul Mashatile reaffirmed the government’s commitment to expropriation of land without compensation, specifically through the use of the Expropriation Act. On the matter of “without compensation” and “nil compensation” regarding the Expropriation Act, the Deputy President said that the intention was the same and the difference was wording: “It may well be that you have issues with the wording thereof, but the intention is to achieve exactly that … that we need to expropriate land without compensation where applicable.” Mashatile continued, “We use the words in the act that ‘we should expropriate land if it’s in the public interest’. The issue of nil compensation, I will look at. But my sense is nil compensation is that you don’t pay.”
In an address by President Ramaphosa to the ANC Manifesto Review Rally in 2023, the matter of the Expropriation Act enabling expropriation without compensation was again emphasised: “We will pass the Expropriation Bill … and will grant the state the authority to expropriate land for public purposes or interests and establish that nil or zero-rand compensation will be deemed just and equitable in accordance with the law.”
The ANC has therefore not only made their desire and intentions to expropriate private property without compensation clear through their failed attempt to amend Section 25 of the Constitution, but also through their own rhetoric. Those trying to rewrite the past to shield the ANC in this moment of intense, deserved international scrutiny, have only exposed themselves. The ANC might be weakened, but it still clearly has a massive, dedicated propaganda machine at its disposal. Luckily, AfriForum has the truth on our side, as well as the historical record to back us up, and our stance on this issue has been consistent for over a decade.
The same ANC cadres who, to this day, praise Robert Mugabe as a hero are now trying to convince the public that they would never violate private property rights – but the public, as well as leaders like Donald Trump, aren’t buying it.
James Myburgh, investigative journalist and Editor of Politicsweb, summed the situation up best:
“The Trump administration’s efforts to pressure the SA government to close the door that the Expropriation Act is trying to open, represents the first time in living memory that the leader of a Western democracy has sought to check the ANC’s kleptocracism – as it enters its final and most ruinous phase – rather than excuse, enable or profit from it. Given this history, the apoplexy that this has provoked among sections of our commentariat – with the cries of ‘lies!’ and ‘treason!’ – is truly a breathtaking sight to behold.”
This week, the wheat was separated from the chaff. A line was drawn between those who only oppose expropriation without compensation when it suits them, and those willing to stick to their principles even under relentless onslaught. If you read the horror stories that came out of Zimbabwe under Mugabe’s land grabs and are not willing to do everything in your power to prevent that hell from happening in South Africa, history will not look back on you kindly, and I hope your conscience gives you no rest.
Read also:
- A legal analysis of EWC’s controversial ‘nil compensation’ clause
- Ben Freeth: Beware SA – EWC looks a lot like Zim’s 1992 foundational land grab law
- SA farmers in frontline fight for their land…
*Ernst van Zyl is the Head of Public Relations at AfriForum and the director of the documentary film Selfbestuur. Ernst obtained a Master’s degree (cum laude) in Political Science at Stellenbosch University. He is a co-presenter of the Podlitiek podcast, hosts the Afrikaans podcast In alle Ernst and has a channel for political commentary and interviews on YouTube. Ernst usually publishes contributions on X and YouTube under his pseudonym Conscious Caracal.
