Trump’s Negative Attention Of EWC Is Warranted
The fact that Trump has jumped the gun on where the Expropriation of Property Act is headed does not diminish the negative attention this Act warrants.
In terms of section 104 of the Agoa agreement, the property rights of a country participating in the agreement must be ring-fenced.
In terms of the EWC Act that is not the case because it violates section 25 of the constitution.
Given the strenuous opposition to the Act which the DA and others have been presenting, it is disturbing to note that suddenly John Steenhuizen seems to be trying to walk back his stance just because what Trump criticised is not actually occurring – just yet. Yet in a press conference last month, DA Minister of Public Works, Dean MacPherson was emphatic that the Act contains two entirely contradictory sections and is therefore unconstitutional.
However, what is evident amongst many of the talking heads on this subject is their ignorance of the Freedom Charter to which the ANC is firmly wedded.
Devised by communists, its contents and aims represent the objectives of communism. Incrementally the ANC has already fulfilled the Charter’s intentions regarding water and mineral rights. Seeking complete control over education as the Bela Bill prescribes is another box of the Charter that has been ticked. Welfare is also well in hand with 18 million now depending on Sassa grants. Housing for all has not come up to scratch yet despite Joe Slovo’s 1995 pledge to build a million houses a year, but then maybe that has been scaled down to informal settlements.
Land is a thorny issue because of the problem of food security, the production of which is largely in the hands of opponents of the ANC. Nonetheless, the EWC legislation contains mechanisms which advance the Charter’s objective of state control over all the land. Like all the other provisions in the Charter, justification of control, ownership and benefit is based on “the will of the people.” As any student of communism knows, that is a code expression meaning state custody and control. In a communist dispensation, everything is owned by the state. Individuals own nothing.
The criticism of Trump is being exploited to downplay the real dangers of the ANC’s expropriation of property legislation. Instead, the situation should seized as an opportunity to further expose what the true objectives of the ANC are, remembering the sober advice of British philanthropist, Sir John Templeton: You cannot have human rights without property rights.
