The concept of private property came about as a result of colonial efforts to disenfranchise African people, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi told people gathered at The Forge’s talks on land in South Africa, scheduled to run throughout the month. 

In an 11th hour plea, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) couriered letters to every member of the Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Infrastructure yesterday, urging them on the eve of their final discussion on the Expropriation Bill today to delete no-compensation provisions that pose an existential threat to all South Africans’ property rights.

The Expropriation Bill — democratic South Africa’s third attempt since 2008 to replace apartheid legislation still on the statute books — has been enmeshed in controversial, but ultimately stalled moves for a constitutional amendment for compensationless expropriation. 

Dr Anthea Jeffery and Terence Corrigan, among others in the pages of the Daily Friend, have at length explained in detail why the so-called “Expropriation” Bill is a dangerous piece of legislation.

And it’s not surprising.

The department of rural development and land reform has released two land audits. The first, published in 2013, covered state-owned land. 

The signing of the Expropriation Act marks the end of all efforts to settle the four-year-old court battle between Saai and the Department of Land Affairs and Rural Development.

There is no discourse in South Africa more ancient, more unresolved, and more weaponised than that of land. The passage of the Expropriation Act in South Africa has set the air thick with tension, a moment that peels open the past to reveal its jagged edges. A history that never ended, only submerged beneath the language of legality and market transactions, is once again clawing at the present.

The Expropriation Act, signed into law by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in January 2025, has sparked significant debate and concern across the nation.