South Africa: Parliament Rejects Expropriation Bill

South Africa’s ruling Africa National Congress (ANC) has witnessed a setback in her efforts to redress past injustices after lawmakers on Tuesday, December 7, 2021 rejected a bill to amend the constitution. The bill, if voted, would have paved the way for government to expropriate land without compensation. The proposed bill, framed as part of wider efforts to tackle yawning land ownership disparities in the country, needed a two-thirds majority necessary to pass an amendment to the constitution. The ANC has 230 seats in parliament and required at least 267 votes to pass the bill. Of the MPs present in the house and on the virtual platform, 145 members voted against the bill, with 204 members supporting the proposed amendment.

During the debate on Tuesday, the ruling Africa National Congress (ANC) party MP, who chaired the ad hoc committee that drafted the bill, Mathole Motshekga, said parliament had the opportunity to address a “crime against African humanity and dispossession of land”. He added that “With or without them, the ANC will make the land available to the people. Without which the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and social ills will continue. Those who don’t support the bill, want the suffering of black people to continue,” Motshekga reiterated. Two main opposition parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) did not support the amendment.

Black South Africans were dispossessed of their land during three centuries of colonialism and apartheid, the system of white-minority ...