Afrikaners 'not govt targets'
2005-11-08 17:40
Cape Town - The government was not specially selecting the land of Afrikaans South Africans for expropriation purposes, said agriculture and land affairs deputy minister Dirk du Toit on Tuesday.
Briefing the media at Tuynhuys at parliament after discussions between a government delegation led by President Thabo Mbeki and the Afrikaans Discussion Group, he said this was "simply not the case".
He said: "To tell you the truth, we never think when we do a project on a certain farm or whatever, whether the person is an English-speaker or an Afrikaans-speaker."
"Restitution is a priority in South Africa. We must finish it off. It's a matter of right. It's not a matter of pure economic development like you have in land reform as such."
Scientific
He said: "It must be finished off so that we can go into systematic land reform, scientific land reform, to a far greater extent than we are capable of at the moment. Most of the money is going to restitution."
However, the nature of restitution was such that if one had to get to an agreed transaction, delays were inevitable. It could take years to get to an agreement, if one was reached at all.
Du Toit said: "There are some jobs that can't be done without the quite democratic powers of expropriation.
"Every day... municipalities are expropriating. You never ask whether for a road, or some works, or whatever. You never ask whether it's an Afrikaner, or an Englishman, or an Indian, or whatever, who is being expropriated."
Fair
Du Toit said: "In some sense, expropriation is a very fair method in restitution matters.
"After a claim has been validated and gazetted, everything on that farm is frozen, possibly for years, while with expropriation, immediately ownership goes over after the due process has been followed, and the person can get his money immediately.
"If he's not satisfied with the money, section 25 of the constitution compels a court to decide on the amount of compensation. Very fair process, very decent...
"I really don't believe... the government is looking around and picking on Afrikaners to expropriate their land. That is simply not the case."
- SAPA