Agri SA slams Malema over land call
2010-08-27 21:18
Johannesburg - ANC Youth League president Julius Malema's call for the willing buyer, willing seller principle to be scrapped is unconstitutional and could undermine investor confidence, Agri SA said on Friday.
"He (Malema) disregards the Constitution of South Africa whereby compensation should be agreed to by those affected or decided by a court of law," said the organisation's president Johannes Möller in a statement.
The body, which promotes the interests of commercial farmers, said Malema's utterance could "undermine investor confidence" in the country and lead to job losses.
It said Malema had contradicted the ANC's position on land expropriation.
Earlier the Mail & Guardian newspaper quoted Malema as saying that landowners who refused amounts offered during expropriation should have their land taken away without any payment.
Public debate
"It's a simple policy. We're going to take the land, but we'll compensate and we'll determine the price. We go to (slain AWB leader Eugene) Terre'Blanche's farm and say: 'For these many hectares we will give you R2m, thank you very much'.
"If you say that's too little and you don't want it, then we take the land and give you nothing. It's called expropriation with compensation determined by the state," Malema said.
Malema said in 10 years, a certain percentage of the country's farming land should have been transferred to the majority of the population.
Möller said his organisation was waiting for a Green Paper on Land Reform and Rural Development, which Rural Development Minister Gugile Nkwinti said would be subject to public debate.
"We view the latest utterance by Mr Malema as just another addition to previous remarks in the same vein which have caused serious embarrassment to the ANC in the past."
- SAPA
