Article Sidebar
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright in all material published in PER/PELJ vests in the author, provided that authors grant, by submission of their contributions, permission that their contributions may be shared and adapted without restriction. An author furthermore agrees that the same contribution may not be published elsewhere without the written permission of the editor.
Anyone gaining access, electronically or otherwise, to a contribution to PER, may quote from such contribution, use the intellectual content thereof, share and adapt it, but subject to the following conditions:
you must give appropriate credit, provide a link and indicate if changes were made; and
the copyright of the author(s) may not be infringed in any way.
Main Article Content
Silence is Golden: The Lack of Direction on Compensation for Expropriation in the 2011 Green Paper on Land Reform
Abstract
The government set the target for redistribution of land to 30% by 2014. They have adopted the "willing-buyer-willing-seller" model that relies on a voluntary transaction between farmers and government to acquire such land. Frustrated at the slow pace of land reform, the ruling party is starting to indicate that the state will in future rely on its expropriation powers to acquire such land.
Section 25 of the Constitution makes it clear that when the state expropriates property, compensation must be paid. The current act, the 1975 Expropriation Act, determines that such compensation must be market value, while the Constitution lists market value as only one of at least five factors that must be taken into account when determining compensation.
There have been various attempts at drafting legislation that will bring compensation practices in line with the Constitution, with the latest Bill published in March 2013. This article focusses on the Green Paper that preceded the Bill, and argues that not much direction is given on how compensation for expropriation should be calculated.
KEYWORDS: Compensation for Expropriation; Land Reform; Willing-buyer-willing-seller; Expropriation; Green Paper on Land Reform.
