Expropriation Bill [B4-2015]: deliberations on public comments, in presence of Deputy Minister

Public Works and Infrastructure

25 August 2015
Chairperson: Mr B Martins (ANC)
Share this page:

Meeting Summary

The Deputy Minister of Public Works, Mr Jeremy Cronin, briefed the Committee on the preliminary responses of the Department of Public Works (DPW) to the inputs received during the public hearings on the Expropriation Bill [B4- 2015]. However, the Department had been expecting that the Committee would finalise its report on those hearings and thus did not yet have a full written response. The DPW acknowledged that there were many useful points but had not accepted all input.

There was discussion on the right of access to the courts, and the DPW agree that section 34 of the Constitution explicitly referred to the right of access to courts, so it was not the intention of the DPW to cut out that right, so it would include, in the preamble, wording to make it clear that disputes could be resolved in a court of law, and carry through the references to the relevant clauses also of the Bill. There was quite lengthy discussion on the definition of, and jurisdiction of “courts”. The Deputy Minister clarified that it would be written into the Bill that it was the duty of the state to initiate court proceedings around compensation, ensure that the courts had jurisdiction. The problem with the magistrate's courts was that they did not have capacity, nor the jurisdiction, to deal with large and complex compensation issues. DPW assured the Committee that it would be looked for alternative dispute resolution wherever possible. It was intending to specify the jurisdiction of the high court. Members raised questions on this, and the State Law Advisers and Parliamentary Legal Adviser also gave input. Members were assured there would be full discussion on the issues in the Committee.

In respect of other definitions, including the definition of “property”, DPW was sympathetic to concerns but said that it would be inappropriate to over-simplify definitions or confine them to land reform and land restitution. It was pointed out, several times, that this was intended to be a law of general application and would not attempt to cover issues already covered by other legislation, or deal too specifically with rights in property, but it was in consultation with the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser. Other definitions questioned included “public interest”. Clause 3, dealing with the powers of the Minister to expropriate, had caused misunderstanding, because it created the impression that the whole Bill was about giving the powers to one Minister, and DPW had asked for assistance on new wording that expressly specified that the minister's power to expropriate on behalf of an organ of state would be used if the expropriated property was relevant to the mandate of DPW. Clause 6 needed further discussion, as to what would happen if a municipal manager failed to respond. In regard to clause 7, SAPOA's comments on intention to expropriate had been useful, but Members raised the point that 30 days might be too short a period to expect an expropriatee to gather information on property value. The Deputy Minister noted the need to balance fairness with easier, quicker processes. The DPW would be preparing a flow chart for the Committee. Members were concerned that the Deputy Minister was not commenting on all proposals, including those on when compensation would be paid (clause 9), clause 8 and engagement with the National House of Traditional Leaders, and surveys. The DPW believed that potential loss during expropriation would not be limited to financial matters but the Constitution's reference to “just and equitable” principles should cover this, and solatium would be a fixed amount. Members questioned the position if expropriated property was subject to a mortgage bond whose outstanding amounts may be higher than the amount offered as compensation. Members urged that the time frames and nature of the debt must be taken into consideration, as well as market value. The Deputy Minister was at pains to point out that clause 15 would recommend a proactive stance by the expropriating authority, but new wording would have to be provided. Clause 21 was to be clarified with additional wording: “does not preclude a person from approaching a court on any other matter relating to the application of this Act.” Procedural suggestions under clause 24 should rather be written into regulations. Members questioned the suggestion by the Deputy Minister that the DPW would take responsibility for keeping the register, expressing concern about its capacity to do so, especially in view of the problems with the asset register.

A UDM Member suggested that a clause be included which prohibited the state from disposing of expropriated property until a certain period of time had expired, to ensure that the legislation would not be used to displace some people, only to replace them with others, but other Members felt that if the distinction between “public interest” and “public purpose” was clear, all expropriations must be aligned to projects of the state, although the DPW conceded that if the purpose were to change it would cause difficulties. Members questioned why failure to comply with an administrative process should not be criminalised. The Committee would continue to discuss all issues.
 

Meeting report

Expropriation Bill [B4-2015]: Responses to public written submissions: Minister and Department of Public Works briefings
Mr Jeremy Cronin, Deputy Minister of Public Works said the Department of Public Works (DPW or the Department) had anticipated that the process following the public hearings on the Expropriation Bill (the Bill) would start with the Committee tabling a report on the hearings. For this reason, the DPW had therefore not as yet prepared any response document for Members to go through, but he noted that the Department would take Members through the Bill and the submissions verbally.

The Chairperson explained that the Committee's Content Adviser, who would normally prepare that document, was off sick, and so the report from the Committee was still being prepared. The Committee was working towards finalising the respective inputs. It would be helpful for the Department, in the meantime, to continue with the briefing and provide the Committee with a starting point.

Ms A Dreyer (DA) said that the impression gained from several submissions made during the public hearings indicated that there were already a number of areas of agreement from the side of the DPW, and she suggested that it would therefore be useful if the Deputy Minister could indicate which of the inputs the DPW had accepted, and which were not accepted.

The Chairperson said that was standard procedure, and the DPW would be following that.

Deputy Minister Cronin said there were some issues which the DPW was very clear on, and those where it felt that there was room for criticism or disagreement would also be indicated. He said the DPW did not want to table a public document, however, before the Committee produced its report.

Preamble
The Deputy Minister responded to an issue raised by the South African Institute for Race Relations that the Bill was not allowing access to courts on any matter other than compensation. The DPW had pointed out that section 34 of the Constitution explicitly spoke to the right to access the courts, and no piece of legislation could undermine that principle. Therefore, in order to overcome the impression that the DPW was trying to cut out courts from the expropriation process, the DPW would include in the preamble the provisions contained in section 34 of the Constitution, making it clear that any disputes could be resolved in a court of law. A similar reference would also be included in clause 21 of the Bill. He indicated that the full wording would be provided to the Committee.

Clause 1
The Deputy Minister said there were a number of issues raised by the Legal Resource Centre, especially around the definitions for “compensation”, “community” and others. The DPW was sympathetic to these concerns, but wanted to point out that the submissions had been narrowly focusing on land reform and land restitution. It was therefore inappropriate to oversimplify the definitions. For this reason, the DPW would not be taking the suggestions into consideration.

In respect of the definitions, the South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA) had some useful and important minor amendments to the definition of “court”, especially “High Court”. The DPW should ensure that ministers did not take the litigation matter to any court that did not have jurisdiction in respect of the land for expropriation. This was an important input. SAPOA also said that the magistrate's courts did not have the capacity to deal with complicated expropriation and compensation matters. They suggested that the matter be kept at the high court level, including the Land Claims Court. The DPW's intention, when it included a reference to magistrate's courts, was to make sure that there was more access, especially for smaller compensation amounts under R 300 000. The DPW also had in mind issues around costs. The DPW had taken the Committee’s advice to look at alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms and for the expropriating authority to initiate any matters around compensation that needed court adjudication, to remove the burden of bringing the action from the citizens whose property was being expropriated. What the DPW was thus proposing under definitions was that “high court” be specified and “areas of jurisdiction” be included, and the general reference to “magistrate's court” be removed.

Ms Dreyer asked whether Members should wait until the DPW was finished with its briefing before asking questions or whether they could ask questions as the briefing was under way.

The Chairperson said Members could ask questions.

Ms Dreyer said there was a request that the Land Claims Court be used, and she wondered if the DPW had looked at this suggestion.

Mr M Filtane (UDM) asked why the DPW had not accepted the suggestion that the DPW make use of tribunals.

Mr K Sithole (IFP) asked for clarity on who would cover the costs of taking an expropriation matter to the high court? Magistrate's courts were less expensive and they were within closer proximity of local communities.

Ms E Masehela (ANC) agreed with the Deputy Minister that using the magistrate’s courts would be cheaper and more accessible than the high courts, yet the DPW was suggesting removing magistrate’s courts as an option. She argued that people should be given more options in this regard.

The Chairperson said the Committee needed to bear in mind that the DPW was articulating its views on the inputs at this stage, and not providing any finality to the matters. The final view would come from what the Committee decided after deliberations.

Dr P Groenewald (FF+) said part of the problem was that Members did not have any reference document to work with at this stage, to enable Members  to see where the DPW was initiating changes to the Bill.

Deputy Minister Cronin agreed with the Chairperson that the final decision would be in the hands of the Committee. The DPW was only making proposals. He responded to the points raised. He pointed out that the Land Claims Court was a high court but it would not be the sole court which dealt with expropriation matters. In respect of using the tribunals, he said the DPW hoped to cover this in ADR mechanisms which the Committee would be dealing with later. He agreed that magistrate’s courts were cheaper and more accessible because of their locality, but in terms of their governing legislation they could only hear cases up to R300 000 in value. The DPW was advised by its legal Counsel that historically, in the 1975 Act, magistrate’s courts were involved but they did not have the competence or the skills required to deal with issues of compensation. The DPW had therefore tried to overcome any complications around costs through the ADR mechanisms, and through the requirement that if, at the end of the process, there was no agreement on compensation, the state would proactively take the matter to court, and this action would not have to be initiated by the expropriatee. However the ultimate decision on the matter would be taken by the Committee, and the DPW was not imposing any decision.

The Chairperson asked whether the Parliamentary Legal Advisers or the State Law Advisers had any contributions to make on the matter.

Adv Vuyokazi Ngcobozi, Parliamentary Legal Adviser, agreed with the Committee that people should be given an option to approach a magistrate’s court if they wished. Magistrate’s courts were more accessible to the lower end of the market. An option should be available for people to approach either a high court or a magistrate’s court.

Adv Gideon Hoon, State Law Adviser agreed with Ms Ngcobozi that the jurisdiction of the court would determine which cases would appear before it.

The Deputy Minister moved on, and reminded the Committee that many of the submissions had suggested that there should be greater precision when defining “property”. The property clause in the Bill of Rights stipulated the current definition of property as not being limited to land, but included the right to income from property. The various submissions had suggested that the definition should be defined according to the various sectors. The DPW's approach was to say that the Bill was a general laws application which had an enduring guidance towards expropriation. The DPW did not want to get into the complicated area of defining what constituted property and what did not, and took the view that the DPW was guided by the Constitution in this matter. A variety of specific pieces of legislation, either explicitly or implicitly, depending on the purpose of the particular Minister named in that legislation, did have definitions of “property”. For example the Forestry Act defined “property” as land purchased or expropriated for forestry. Therefore once the Bill had been passed the Minister would offer a general definition, but no Minister would define “property” outside the specific piece of legislation which allowed for that expropriation in terms of that Act. The definition of property was also a moving target, and the definition should therefore be kept very general for the purpose of the current general law of application.

Dr Groenewald asked whether the DPW was proposing that the definition be kept as it was, and also wanted to know how the DPW would deal with the right inside that property.

Deputy Minister Cronin responded that there were different levels of ownership. In the case of servitude, the farmer would still have ownership of the land but there would be a right of use in that property allowed to another, even if it was not expropriated. SAPOA's submission made it clear that this organisation did not feel that the definition had sufficiently covered land. The DPW was in consultation with the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser to find out whether “property” was not limited to land, and whether it would include a right in such a property and whether this was sufficient to cover the land issue.

Dr Groenewald said the South African Surveyors Association also highlighted a lot of problems with these sort of rights and the DPW needed to look into such matters.

Deputy Minister Cronin said Agriculture South Africa (AgriSA), the South African Geomatics Institution and others were not happy with the definition of “public interest”. The DPW had defined public interest according to the definition in the Constitution; public interest was a commitment to land reform and reform geared to bring about equitable access to South Africa’s natural resources. The DPW had added “and other related reforms in order to redress the results of past racial discriminatory laws and practices”. The definition was not outside that of the Constitution; as section 25(8) of the Constitution had been taken into consideration. Whoever had a problem with the definition of “public interest” as defined in the Bill had a problem with the Constitution. However, on this matter too, the Committee would have to finally decide on the wording.
 
Ms Dreyer said the Minister indicated, during the submissions and discussions, that the DPW could drop the additional part of the clause.

Deputy Minister Cronin said the DPW could do that, but the Department was very interested to hear whether there were any political parties in Parliament which thought the DPW should drop the reference to the Bill of Rights. The DPW preferred to have it included because it did not dramatically change the Bill. The DPW would be surprised if there were any political parties that would have a problem with that addition.

Ms Masehela felt there was no problem having that section included.

Dr Groenewald asked whether section 36 (1) of the Constitution should not also be included in the section.

Deputy Minister Cronin said section 36 (1) set out that the rights in the Bill of Rights may be limited in terms of a law of general application. He felt that including this would result in an unnecessary “cluttering up” of the Bill. The DPW had already tabled its commitment to sustaining the section.

Dr Groenewald said the Freedom Front Plus supported the inclusion of the complete wording.

Deputy Minister Cronin said there were some instances raised by the SA Geomatics Institute around the definitions, but, having taken further advice, the DPW felt it was unnecessary to do so.

Clause 3
Deputy Minister Cronin said this clause had caused a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings, specifically in reference to clause 3(1)(a). The first problem was that, because the DPW began with the specific chapter which dealt with the powers of the Minister in regard to expropriation, this resulted in a common misreading that the whole Bill was about giving the powers to one Minister, which was in fact not the case. This particular clause could give the impression that any organ of state could request the Minister of Public Works to expropriate on its behalf, and the DPW agreed that the clause was open to such misinterpretation and this should be avoided. The Chief State Law Adviser had been asked to assist the DPW with new wording which would make it clear that the Minister of Public Works could expropriate on behalf of an organ of state, provided that the expropriated property was relevant to the mandate of DPW. This point was raised very strongly by Webber Wentzel. The DPW agreed that it was ambiguous.

Mr Filtane asked how the DPW proposed to restructure the clause.

Deputy Minister Cronin responded that the DPW would be taking advice from the Chief State Law Adviser. Assistance would also be taken from counsel.

Clause 6
Deputy Minister Cronin said the SA Geomatics Institute raised a concern around Clause 6(1)(4).

Ms Dreyer asked whether the Minister had no comments on Clause 2, 3,4 and 5. There were a lot of comments from the public input on these sections, which the Minister was not dealing with.

Deputy Minister Cronin said he had just outlined what the DPW was doing on clause 3 and a lot of the comments which followed, particularly those from the Institute of Race Relations under Chapter 2, were related to the misunderstanding on that clause. The DPW was also under the impression that most of the issues would be dealt with when the Committee was dealing with the Bill clause by clause.

Mr Filtane asked for procedural matters to be clarified. He asked whether this meeting was going to proceed on the understanding that where the DPW offered no comments, it was assuming that the Committee would simply deal with and decide upon the submissions. He also asked if the DPW would not be coming back and dealing with the comments which were raised by the public on particular clauses.

The Chairperson responded that it was his understanding that, where the DPW had not made a comment, it was seeking legal clarity from the Chief State Law Adviser. After the public hearings the DPW would be given the opportunity to express its views regarding all inputs from stakeholders and the public. The Committee would then interact with these views and decide what the end version of the Bill would and would not contain.

Ms E Masehela said the matters that the Minister had not touched on during this meeting would be discussed in any event when the Committee was dealing with the Bill clause by clause.

Dr Groenewald (FF+) agreed with the Chairperson that the Bill was now with the Committee and the Committee would decide finally on what to include in the Bill.

Deputy Minister Cronin said it would have helped if the Committee had tabled a collective view on the Bill beforehand, but made it clear the DPW would not be exercising a veto on the matter. The Committee had the final decision.

Clause 6 (resumed)
Deputy Minister Cronin said the SA Geomatics Institute raised a matter around the request to a municipal manager to indicate whether a particular expropriation would impact on the municipality's Integrated Development Plan. It had been pointed out that any expropriation would obviously impact on a municipality, so clause 6 (1)(4) should therefore be re-worded to say the expropriation would have no “adverse” impact on the municipality or its plans.

Ms Dreyer agreed with the proposed amendment. She made a point relating to what might happen if the municipal manager failed to respond, pointing out that the Committee needed to be realistic because circumstances within many municipalities were not ideal. A lot of local municipalities were actually failing, and the DPW was very likely to find that municipal managers did not respond in time, whether as a result of neglect or incompetence. She wondered how the DPW would find a way around this?

The Chairperson said the issue raised by Ms Dreyer was very relevant and the Committee needed to think about how it would deal with such a problem, should it arise. Members could make suggestions or the point could be flagged now and ideas raised at a later engagement.

Dr Groenewald said subclause (4) would cover how to deal with the municipal manager should he/she fail to respond.

Ms Dreyer said municipal managers could fail to respond for a number of reasons, including that municipal managers were not always up to scratch. The effects of this could be devastating.

Deputy Minister Cronin said not every municipal problem could be solved with legislation. Clause 5(4) placed an onus on the creating authority to carry out effective investigations on the failure of any municipal manager with due recourse. However not all problems could be solved with a law of general application.

The Chairperson asked that the legal Advisers provide input whenever they felt it necessary.

Adv Hoon referred to Clause 5(4)(d)(iii) and said it provided an onus on taking into consideration all matters which related to municipalities.

Clause 7(4)(a)
Deputy Minister Cronin said a useful matter was pointed out to the DPW by SAPOA, regarding the intention to expropriate. He said it would be useful to indicate that the expropriation was not definitive and expropriation was not guaranteed at this point.

Mr Filtane said 30 days did not seem enough time for the expropriatee to gather full particulars on the value of the land. An external party would be evaluating the land, and in most cases this was a lengthy process.

Dr Groenewald said a lot of submissions from the public had raised concerns around timeframes, and wanted the DPW's view on this generally

Deputy Minister Cronin agreed that all processes should be fair. He said the preferred option was not to simply expropriate but rather to ensure that all parties reached agreement quickly and easily. Timelines therefore needed to bear in mind all processes that were needed. The DPW would produce a PowerPoint presentation on issues relating to timeframes. This issue was also made by Webber Wentzel. The Committee needed to be careful and understand that possession did not take place immediately after expropriation.

Mr Sithole said Clause 4(b) did not provide any definition on “property”. He asked what the DPW's view was on this point.

Deputy Minister Cronin said it would be useful to have a flow diagram. The state valuer would do a valuation to determine the value of the land and/or property, and the 30 day period was an opportunity for the party whose property was targeted for expropriation to comment.

Clauses 8 to 14
The Deputy Minister said that he would deal with clause 14.

Ms Dreyer asked whether clauses 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 would not be discussed, similar to the points she had raised about the earlier clauses. . There were various inputs made during the public submissions on these clauses and she asked whether the Minister was going to come back to these.

Deputy Minister Cronin said the DPW would be happy to hear what these inputs were.

The Chairperson asked that Ms Dreyer re-cap some of the points which were highlighted in respect of  those specific clauses.

Ms Dreyer firstly pointed out that in relation to  “notice of expropriation”, there were a lot of proposals, especially from Webber Wentzel around the dates and timelines. Clause 9 spoke to when compensation needed to be paid, and at what date. There was a strong suggestion that compensation needed to be paid on the date of expropriation; for people could not be expected to hand over property unless they had been paid, particularly because most needed to incur the costs of alternative accommodation.

Mr Filtane referred back to Clause 8 and indicated that the National House of Traditional Leaders (NHTL) wanted to be involved in the process. He asked what were the DPW's views on this? This was anticipated to be a problem because traditional leaders hadexpressed themselves very strongly in this regard.

Deputy Minister Cronin responded that the DPW had met with the NHTL during the previous administration, on the same Bill, and traditional leaders would be consulted in so far as they would be an affected party, especially regarding communally-owned property. Traditional leaders would naturally be included as parties to be consulted.

With regard to the surveyor issue he said the DPW had checked other pieces of legislation, specifically the Land Survey Act and the Deeds Registry Act of 1977, and the DPW was of the view that these pieces of legislation adequately covered details around surveys. There was no need for the law of general application to cover this issue, because it was already covered elsewhere. The DPW could, however, cross-reference, and in clause 9 the Land Survey Act and the Deeds Registry Act could be mentioned, to give greater clarity, if the Committee felt it necessary.
 
Adv Ngcobozi agreed with the Deputy Minister and explained that if a provision of similar nature was in another piece of legislation there was no need to import it to the current Bill, and she also agreed that if there was a need for emphasis, there could be cross-referencing.

Adv Hoon also agreed, and said it was not necessary to inflate pieces of legislation by re-stating points.

Clause 12
Deputy Minister Cronin said the DPW had been very conscious about what needed to be taken into consideration when dealing with issues of compensation, but the Bill of Rights provided guidance. Detailed inputs on how to determine compensation and what factors to bear in mind would be taken into consideration. However, as previously stated, this Bill was a law of general application. The DPW felt there should be no further changes made to Clause 12.

With regard to the issue of “trane geld” and the content of the 1975 Expropriation Act, he said the DPW's view was that the potential loss during an expropriation would not be limited to financial matters only and the “just and equitable” clause in the Constitution provided broader guidance on the matter. Members also needed to keep in mind that solatium was a fixed amount.

Dr Groenewald responded to this point. During the public hearings the Banking Association of South Africa raised a concern around the mortgage bond, and how to deal with a situation where the expropriation amount paid did not cover the full amount outstanding on the bond. The bond holder was still liable for the outstanding amount, and this posed a real risk that the owner could go bankrupt. How would such a situation be dealt with?

Mr Filtane said the DPW should not hold back its comments on such a tricky clause. He said that in cases where there was a bond, a longer notice period of the intention to expropriate should be given, affording the land owner enough time to sell the property himself. The normal timelines of the expropriation process would potentially put the owner in a worse off situation financially, especially in the event where the settlement amount being offered was far less than the bond still owed. If the owner sold the property himself he would most likely get a fair compensation for his/her property. Communities or land owners should still be in the same financial position as they were in before the expropriation took place, and this should be a guiding principle for the DPW. During the public submissions, banks also suggested strongly that the market value of the land/property should be taken into consideration.

Mr M Walters (DA) agreed with the previous Members and said the nature of the debt should also be taken into consideration. Agriculture relied heavily on short term debt, and therefore if the process was not clear small delays could have a huge impact on compensation, and on the value of land.

Ms Dreyer said she was quite surprised to hear that the DPW did not accept any of the comments made during the public submissions. Determination of compensation was a serious matter and people needed to be adequately compensated, especially where relocations and bonds were involved. Determining compensation on a market value basis was very important. She asked that the Deputy Minister should perhaps go back and look at Clause 12 again, and come back to the Committee with some comments.

Deputy Minister Cronin reiterated that the Bill under discussion was a general law. The DPW had considered all inputs made, but the main challenge was how to put them into legislation. The fundamental point was that the public needed to put their trust in the courts because most of the work would be in the domain of courts, guided by the Constitution. In relation to the concerns around the bonds, he explained that once agreement had been reached on expropriation, the mortgage bond would be cancelled so the bank would be compensated. However, banks would not be compensated for reckless lending. He said the correct processes always preceded the actual expropriation. He indicated that market value was one of the criteria in the Bill of Rights and it would be taken into consideration. However there were other considerations of which the Committee needed to be mindful, such as the history of the acquisition and the current use of the land. In a general way, the DPW was offering guidance, but all disagreements would be decided on in a court. It must also be remembered that the money used for compensation was public money and the DPW had a responsibility to ensure that it was used wisely.

Adv Ngcobozi said each case would be treated on its own merit, and f there was a bond involved this was one of the circumstances which needed to be taken into account.

Mr Filtane raised a concern around the over-reliance on courts, and said an ordinary individual should be able to interpret the legislation as well.

The Chairperson said the responsibility of the Committee was to pilot legislation through for Parliament to pass, and this Bill no longer “belonged” to the DPW, but to this Committee. After being adopted by the House it would be sent to the President for assent, and it would then become a law of the land.

Clause 15
Deputy Minister Cronin said that on clause 15(3) the DPW was recommending a proactive stance by the expropriating authority ,who should take disputes around compensation to court.

Ms Dreyer said clause 15(3) said that if the onus was to be on the expropriating authority to approach the court, then DPW must provide new recommended wording. The current wording still put the responsibility on the expropriatee to take the matter to court.

Clause 21
Deputy Minister Cronin said the South African Institute for Race Relations and others raised a concern that apart from the compensation issue, no other matter could be taken to court. DPW was now suggesting that there be an addition under clause 21(1), worded: “does not preclude a person from approaching a court on any other matter relating to the application of this Act.”

Clause 24
Deputy Minister Cronin said series of procedural issues were raised by the SA Geomatics Institute, such as the size of the notice and the language to be used in notices which the Institute suggested should be included in the Bill. The DPW, however, felt these suggestions could rather be written into regulations.

Dr Groenewald agreed with the Deputy Minister.

Clause 26
Deputy Minister Cronin spoke to the expropriation register and said the DPW would take responsibility for keeping the register. The Deeds Registry Office had been approached to keep the registry but indicated that it did not have the capacity to do so.

Ms Dreyer said the issue of the register was a good idea, but in practice it would be difficult to implement. The DPW still did not have a reliable asset register itself and she wondered how it would be able to handle the expropriation register, if it did not have capacity.

The Chairperson responded that in relation to the DPW's asset register, there were a number of reasons for the delay in finalising it. In 1994 the challenge was that the previous regime had a lot of property outside the country which was not identified as South African property, and it took a very long time for the DPW to get that information from the previous government. Even today there had not been a final reconciliation of state property and this was a huge challenge for government.

Deputy Minister Cronin said the DPW's immovable asset register was currently 99% complete and up to date. However Members needed to be aware that the asset register was a moving target because the state’s register could not continually updated for a number of reasons, although significant progress had been made. Any register was only as complete as the information it received from the public. The process was costly and it took a lot of time.

Mr Filtane asked whether it would not be prudent to have a clause which prohibited the state from disposing of expropriated property until a certain period of time had expired, just to be sure that the legislation would not be used to displace some people, only to replace them with others.

Mr Walters said he understood the concern raised by Mr Filtane, but felt that this was not the right way to go about it. There was a clear distinction between “public interest” and “public purpose”. The purpose of expropriation was clarified and set in stone, as it was aligned to projects of the state.

Deputy Minister Cronin said that in an earlier version of the Bill the DPW had included a clause like that suggested by Mr Filtane, but had received legal advice that it would be very difficult to administer. The notice of intention to expropriate required that the purpose of expropriation be made very clear. However, if the expropriated property was put into other use a few years later, the DPW was not sure how to cover that.

Clause 27
Mr Filtane referred to clause 27 and asked why it was said to be a legal offence when a person failed to comply with an administrative process. People had the right to not respond to the notice to expropriate.

Deputy Minister Cronin said the DPW would produce a flow diagram indicating the process from start to finish, and the prospective timeframes.

Mr Walters agreed with Mr Filtane that administrative processes should not be criminalised.

The Chairperson said the point raised had been noted and it would be one of the issues the Committee would discuss in the next meeting. He thanked all Members for their contributions and the Deputy Minister and DPW for the briefing. The Committee would produce a report on all the submissions made by the general public and various stakeholders during the public hearings, including those made by Members. The report would be circulated to Members late that afternoon.

The meeting was adjourned. 

Documents

No related documents

Download as PDF

You can download this page as a PDF using your browser's print functionality. Click on the "Print" button below and select the "PDF" option under destinations/printers.

See detailed instructions for your browser here.

Share this page: