South Africa has passed a bill criticised by some opposition parties and farming groups that allows the compulsory purchase of land in the public interest.
The bill, approved by parliament on Thursday, will enable the state to pay for land at a value determined by a government adjudicator and then expropriate it for the “public interest”, ending the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach to land reform.
Twenty years after the end of apartheid, most of South Africa’s land is still white-owned and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party says the legislation will tackle an injustice and put more land in black hands.
The national assembly initially passed the bill in February before it was sent for amendments and it remains only for President Jacob Zuma to sign it into law. Many commercial and small-scale producers in South Africa are currently facing tough times because of the worst drought in at least a century.
The ANC says land will only be expropriated after “just and equitable” compensation has been paid.
Around eight million hectares of land have been transferred to black owners since apartheid, equal to eight to 10 percent of the land in white hands in 1994.
The total is only a third of the 30 percent targeted by the ANC. — Al Jazeera