Business lobby group Business Unity SA (Busa), whose members include some of the country’s leading financial institutions including Absa, Sanlam and Discovery, has endorsed the Expropriation Bill, which has put SA in the crosshairs of the US.
Though the SA government says it is in continuous discussions with the Trump administration over the legislation and other concerns, senior legislators with the majority Republican government, including Texan senator and member of the Senate’s foreign relations committee Ted Cruz and secretary of state Marco Rubio have accused SA of anti-US policies.
Cruz lashed out at SA over its position on Taiwan, while in a social media post on “X”, Rubio said he would not be attending the G20 summit because SA is “doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, [and] sustainability’. In other words: DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and climate change.”
SA has held the G20 presidency from November last year and is set to host a meeting of foreign ministers from February 20-21 in Johannesburg.
On Wednesday, Busa joined the fightback by the SA government and opposition parties against accusations by the Trump administration that SA was confiscating privately owned land under the Expropriation Bill. Busa said the concern that the legislation “opens the door to land grabs” was unwarranted.
“Across the world, the state has powers of expropriation. Where a country’s government requires the property of a private person for a public purpose, and the owner refuses to sell, there must be a mechanism to acquire the property against the owner’s will, provided that due process is followed and compensation paid. There is no reason for SA to be an exception,” Busa said in a statement.
“Like any piece of legislation, the Expropriation Act is not without imperfections and contains ambiguities that have justifiably raised concerns. We urge the business community to remain vigilant in monitoring the implementation of this act, but as yet, there is no reason for alarm.”
SA’s land policies, including the recently signed Expropriation Act, and the government’s push to address apartheid-era land ownership patterns, have long been a divisive matter. It has drawn criticism from the DA, lobby groups such as AfriForum and Solidarity and, most recently, Trump’s adviser Elon Musk, who was born in SA.
The law “outlines how expropriation can be done and on what basis” by the state and allows for expropriation without compensation only in circumstances where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.
“The act is certainly not a ‘shortcut’ for the state to acquire property, as the procedures the state must follow are significantly more burdensome than those for purchasing the property directly. The act stipulates that the state can only expropriate if it has failed to purchase the property on reasonable terms. It serves as a deadlock-breaking mechanism and should only be used as a last resort,” says Theo Botha who represented Busa at Nedlac during negotiations on the legislation.
“Section 12 (3), which includes the nil-compensation provision, understandably raises considerable anxiety, as we will only fully understand its impact once the courts have had the opportunity to interpret it. But the wording of this clause does not assert that awarding nil compensation will necessarily be just and equitable; it merely states that it may be so.”
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