As the ANC marks the start of a 3-month process of deliberation ahead of its policy conference in June, party leaders are divided on whether or not to explore land expropriation without compensation.
On Sunday the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) publically launched a series of discussion documents that will be used to propose areas for policy review at its elective conference in December.
Under pressure to reverse the declining electoral support it experienced during the 2016 local government elections, the party started the year with calls for radical economic transformation, with some including president Jacob Zuma going the extent of calling for expropriation without compensation. But other ANC leaders including ANC head of economic transformation Enoch Godongwana, science and technology minister Naledi Pandor and ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu have expressed reservations on these calls for expropriation without compensation.
“The current [ANC] policy does not talk about expropriation without compensation,” Godongwana told the
Mail & Guardian this week.
“What was said in Mangaung in 2012 is that property or land taken illegally should be subject to expropriation without compensation with due regard to section 25 of the Constitution,” he added.
The discussion document on economic transformation calls for land reform to be accelerated through the adoption of updated expropriation legislation.
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