Former president FW de Klerk has warned SA could slide backward over the ANC property rights policies.
|||South Africa was reaching “a tipping point” and government decisions on critical issues such as a new policy on property rights could see the country slide backwards, former president FW de Klerk, warned at the SA Property Owners Association (Sapoa) Convention in Durban on Thursday.
“I believe property rights are under threat and that the next 12 months could be crucial in determining the future of property rights in South Africa… The ANC released policy discussion papers in March that include threats to property rights. Decisions are set to be made at their next policy conference which will impact not only the property industry, but the economy,” he said.
De Klerk said that if private property was undermined it could “kill much of the economic activity” in the country, as property rights were a central tenet of democracy and entrenched in the constitution.
He said that in the early 1990s, when the new constitution was hammered out, Sapoa had played a key role in “insisting on the importance of property rights”. This ensured that property rights were enshrined through a clause in the constitution.
“This should be maintained and not tampered with in any way. As a country we are reaching a tipping point on some major issues. What happens in the next five years will determine where we’re going as a nation. It will determine if we reach our potential or slide,” De Klerk said.
“The ANC is evidently intent on implementing controversial land reform policies which would seriously undermine the property rights of farmers.
“The ‘agrarian transformation’ that is postulated in its green paper on land reform would require a rapid and fundamental change in the systems and patterns of ownership and control of land, livestock, cropping and community.
“Privately owned land would be freehold, but with ‘limited extent’ – which meant a cap might be placed on the size of farms or the number of farms that a person may own.
“I am also concerned that the ANC may be thinking of targeting pensions and life assurance savings… The state plans to regulate a substantial part of public and private retirement and life assurance funds so that these funds can be invested in the financial instruments of state-owned enterprises and/or development finance institutions.
“Any attempt to interfere with the ability of pension and life assurance funds to achieve the maximum secure benefits for their investors could seriously undermine the property rights of those involved.”
De Klerk said all of this was part of plans to increase the government’s role in the economy as part of the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution and vision of establishing a “developmental state”.
De Klerk said: “The central goal of the National Democratic Revolution was the deracialisation of ownership and control of wealth, including land, equity and affirmative action in the provision of skills and access to positions of management. Any attempt to erode the property rights of South Africans on the basis of their race would have very serious implications for the national consensus on which we have operated since 1994.”
*Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, speaking at the convention, said increasingly systematic maladministration was a major concern and a threat to democracy. She said “high-profile leasing deals” that her office had to look into were the “tip of the iceberg”.
“Systematic maladministration is an everyday reality that we have to deal with… We get complaints on corruption and irregular deals that involve all levels of government.
“It seems that if you want to make a quick buck all you have to do is rent a property to government. The government is really being ripped off with inflated prices for products and services… the effects of maladministration will have an impact on us for years to come.”