“WHO pays the bank?” This question was just one of many indicators that land expropriation without compensation was a recipe for disaster, said DA federal chairperson and Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor, Athol Trollip, at a dinner in Bedford this past Tuesday.
Trollip grew up on a farm in the Bedford district. Speaking to 80 people – predominantly local farmers – he asserted that farmland in South Africa was overpriced and many farms were bonded – “owned by the bank”.
If a farm was expropriated without compensation, he explained, the ex-landowner would be left with the debt which he/she could default on, and then get blacklisted for further credit.
But the bank would be left with the shortfall and no means of recourse. Destabilising the banking industry would have dire consequences, he pointed out.
“Who owns the land?” was another question central to the issue of land expropriation/redistribution, he said.
“There are indications that whites own 20% but we have yet to see a comprehensive land audit. Probably because the results would be an inconvenient truth. It is clear that the state already owns vast tracts of land,” Trollip said.
Land expropriation with compensation was practised in many countries, he said, but expropriated land was not acquired by the state (as in South Africa) and open to acquisition only by those close to government.
Trollip reckoned that “90% of claimants don’t actually want to farm. They choose to take cash.”
He said that opting for land expropriation without compensation was a “cop-out” on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s part. He said the decision had been made well after midnight after a fraught weekend of debate.
The decision had helped to secure Ramaphosa’s position.
“I like Ramaphosa,” Trollip said. “He’s a good guy – a farmer – and he has published a very nice book on his cattle.
“But when the first flush of ‘Rama-phoria’ had faded he would be in for a hard time. He is the captain of a ship with a (Jacob) Zuma crew.”
Concluding his broad-ranging speech, Trollip said, “Most South Africans do not want a divided country. We have to pull together and we can.”
Trollip spent Tuesday night at the Duke of Bedford Inn and spoke at a breakfast in Somerset East on Wednesday morning before returning to his mayoral office in Port Elizabeth.