The controversial issue of the expropriation of the country has increased dramatically, with a report in City Press stating that the government has begun unilaterally expropriating farms.
The farms in question are the ones against which land claims have been made but where the negotiations between the state and the owners have been divided over the value of the land.
The report states that two wildlife parks in Limpopo are the first properties that the state will attempt to expropriate without following a trial through the courts.
A claim against the land that was stabled by the Musekwa tribe in 1996 was cited in the 2006 Government Gazette.
The state intends to offer compensation, but a difference of opinion arose on both the validity of the ground claims. filed against the property and the true value of the country.
The government has offered the owners R20 million for property, which they believe is worth R200 million.
READ MORE: & # 39; List & # 39; of companies that are allegedly expropriated, Limpopo farmers has put their focus
City Press reports that Akkerland Boerdery, the owners of a game farm in Makhado, Limpopo, earlier in the year received an annotation submitted the trial in the future.
"It is reported that a site inspection on the farms on 5 April 2018 at 10 am will be held to conduct an audit of the assets and a transfer of keys from the farm to the state." letter reads.
Akkerland Boerdery reportedly obtained a prescription in the Land Claims Court to stop their expulsion of the farms.
Legal advisor of agricultural organization AgriSA, Annelize Crosby, told City Press that she was worried about the case, because AgriSA was only aware of one other case in which a dispute over land had led to expropriation. That specific case was signed in 1997 by the Land Claims Court.
"What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently did not have the opportunity to challenge the claim for the first time, as required by law," she was quoted as saying.
According to the land renewal section spokesperson Linda Page, though, Section 42E of the Act provides for certain ministers to intervene to buy, acquire or expropriate property for the purpose of land reform.
Cyril Ramaphosa recently made a nightly announcement of the ANC's decision to support the changing of the constitution to make land independence without compensation easier and "more explicit".
READ MORE: ANC & # 39; s Lamola says that land can now be legally expropriated
Some have the feeling that this calls for the authenticity of country hearings across the country recently in doubt, and whether the state intended to listen to those who had their say and apply the findings of the hearing.
In July it was reported that at the ANC country summit Western Cape in Stellenbosch keynote speaker and ANC NEC member Ronald Lamola said there was no reason to wait for public hearings for expropriation without compensation.
The youngest NEC member of the ANC said that the outcome of the National Summit of the party, held in May, was that President Cyril Ramaphosa would appoint a task force to assist with the land reform project.
Cases of expropriation would then be required to be tested on a case-by-case basis in the Constitutional Court, Lamola added.
According to the politician, government departments and entities already had the means to test the Constitution by expropriating land within existing law.
Lamola, a lawyer by profession, sits in the subcommittee of the party for economic transformation.
To clarify his conviction that expropriation of land can be constitutionally implemented, he said: We do not believe that the constitution is a sellout document. What is needed is that the problem of the expropriation of the country must be well defined. We must provide clarity. "
" All those [state] institutions already have the authority to expropriate, so they do not have to wait for the public hearings [to end].
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