The ANC’s plan for expropriation without compensation resembles the revolution by stealth model of Mozambique
Frans Cronje of the Institute of Race Relations highlights two common misconceptions about expropriation without compensation. First, that the act will apply only to rural farmland and not urban housing , and second, that banks can assume a mortgage loan will remain owing even if expropriation applies. There is a further condition creeping into the current iteration: the process will exclude the courts and be adjudicated by politicians.
The Zimbabwe “land grab” was driven largely by a sense of righteous pain over white usurpation of the best farming land, as well as the greed and envy of elites. But another, more appropriate analogy gives a starker warning. In Mozambique expropriation was driven by pure ideology. And it is the Mozambican model the ANC ideologues begin most closely to mimic.
In Mozambique, on independence in 1975 all land, rural and urban, became state owned with zero compensation. This followed classic communist revolutionary ideology. Businesses were equally vulnerable to expropriation. All the “bogeys” now being raised were realised. Families homeless and ruined, the country’s economy collapsed through the destruction of property and the banking system.
Ten years after independence Maputo was a shell of a city in every respect. But, while ownership was denied, a small market began to develop based on 50-year-lease property. Needless to say, with approval required by politicians there was a feeding frenzy of corruption. It is also worth noting that before 1975 nearly all of Mozambique’s “intelligentsia” had departed, surrendering the country to radical populists. South Africans, distracted by noise over economic downgrades and scandalous corruption, should be wary of lightly conceding clauses in our constitution. They might be surprised when the ANC’s “revolution by stealth and deception” puts in place a Mozambican model of ownership.Send us an e-mail with your comments.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
LETTER: Bathabile Dlamini’s faction is showingHer attack on the judge making a constitutional ruling on Jacob Zuma smacks of a call for favouritism
Read more »
LETTER: Stop the rot at UnisaThe president must intervene in the shutdown of the university by irresponsible student leaders and Nehawu
Read more »
LETTER: Shocking joblessnessThe government has the power to stimulate jobs growth by relaxing labour laws
Read more »
LETTER: Cyril Ramaphosa’s grave mistakeThe president’s praise of two horrible leaders is worrying if he meant his words
Read more »
Zandie 'divorces' sister Kelly Khumalo with a scathing letterZandie Khumalo vs Kelly Khumalo... is actually HECTIC!
Read more »
Zandie 'divorces' sister Kelly Khumalo with a scathing letterZandie took to Instagram to share the lengthy letter in which she expressed how heartbreaking it was for her to “love her sister from a distance”, labelling Kelly's statement “haphazard, premature and unnecessary”.
Read more »