The Committee met to deal with the two proposed amendments that had been made by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on the Expropriation Bill [B4B-2015]. The first amendment aimed to increase the number of days in which the municipal manager must inform the expropriating authority, in writing, of charges from 20 days to 30 days, if land which had been expropriated is subject to municipal rates.
With the Minister of Public Works in attendance, the Deputy Minister gave a briefing on the Expropriation Bill (B4-2015). He said that expropriation is an essential mechanism for the state to acquire property in certain instances. Section 25 of the Constitution provides that property may be expropriated only in terms of general application and to that no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property. The Constitution states that expropriation may occur only for a public purpose or in the public interest and subject to payment of compensation.
The South African Institute of Race Relations said the Bill made it difficult for the compensation amount to be decided by a court, and the Bill did not allow the courts to examine and rule on the validity of the expropriation. The Bill tried to limit how often people could go to court about the amount of compensation. The IRR argued that 60 days was not enough time for the claimant to institute legal proceedings for the determination of the compensation, this should be extended to 180 days. Compensation should include damages for additional losses.
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.
The Deputy Minister of Public Works continued to take Members through the comments made during the public hearings on the Expropriation Bill, indicating what comments had been made and whether the Department agreed with them or had other views. The Department had added to the Preamble to make it clear that section 34 of the Constitution provided that anyone had the right to approach the courts for resolution of a dispute. In relation to the definitions, there was discussion on whether the Bill should refer to both high courts and magistrates’ courts.
The Bill incorporating the proposed amendments was not yet ready so the Deputy Minister discussed with the Committee some of the proposed changes to the Bill that had been agreed upon so far.
Members raised concerns about the variation in judgements in Magistrates Courts; the potential definition of expropriation; definition of property being not limited to land. Some MPs wanted to “subject to the payment of just and equitable compensation” and just add “according to the Constitution and the Act”.
The Department produced a Working Draft of the Bill that incorporated all the proposed amendments previously made by the Committee. The Deputy Minister indicated that the Department had introduced the definition of “disputing party” in clause 1, which indicated that the “ disputing party includes an owner, holder of an unregistered right, expropriated owner or expropriated holder that does not accept the amount of compensation offered in terms of clause 14(1)”.
The Committee considered the official list of proposed amendments to the Bill (the A-list) accompanied by the B version of the Bill incorporating all the proposed amendments into the Bill.
The Committee continued deliberations on the official list of committee proposed amendments to the Bill (A-list) accompanied by the B version which incorporated all the proposed amendments into the Bill. Chapter 4 on Intention to Expropriate and Expropriation of Property was completed.
The Committee continued with deliberations on the official list of proposed amendments to the Bill (A-list) accompanied by the B version of the Bill incorporating all the proposed amendments into the Bill. A DA member pointed out that the factors that had been highlighted in clause 12(1)(a), (b), (c), (d) and (e) had no direct monetary value and it was difficult to see how these factors would affect the compensation. There was a proposal that the Department should add a clause 12(2)(g) that would focus on the actual financial loss that had been incurred by the expropriated owner.
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