Land reform not working - Malema

2010-08-27 12:28

Johannesburg - Landowners who refuse amounts offered during expropriation should have their land taken away with no payment, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema said on Friday.

"Willing seller, willing buyer is not working, [Black Economic Empowerment] is not working," Malema told the Mail&Guardian when asked what the ANCYL meant when it said it did not want leaders to tell the queen (of England) that economic policies would not change.

Malema said that in 10 years, a certain percentage of land should have been transferred to the majority of the population.

"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 [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."

Zuma's visit to Britain

Without mentioning President Jacob Zuma, who travelled to the United Kingdom earlier this year and met Queen Elizabeth II, he said that when the ANCYL was formed, it was opposed to forms of struggle such as petitions, or "sending delegations to the queen".

"Now that you are given power by the people of South Africa, you still go to the queen and behave like you don't have power from the people.

"When you say that there will be no change in South Africa's economic pattern, you are saying that it will remain the same as during the colonial regime."

During his visit, in response to calls for clarity on talk by the ANCYL that South Africa's mines would be nationalised, Zuma said nationalisation was not government policy.

- SAPA