The mostimmediate consequence of political moves to bring about land expropriation without compensation in South Africa has been a surge in attempted unauthorised land occupations, resisted by security forces.

• A high-level panel in South Africa has told a parliamentary land reform committee that adopting a standard of expropriation without compensation is not necessary to speed up the process of reallocation to the black majority.
  
• Parliamentary and ruling African National Congress party backing for the principle of land seizures is driving persistent attempts by townships' residents to occupy neighbouring land, currently centring on Gauteng province.
  
• Overt encouragement of land occupations by the Economic Freedom Fighters party is likely to spread their incidence to other parts of the country, including to state and commercially owned property.

South Africa's parliamentary committee on land reform heard testimony on 14 March that adopting an expropriation without compensation standard was not the way to address thorny issues of land reform. Delivering the conclusions of the report of parliament's High-Level Panel headed by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, Dr Aninka Claassens told MPs that failure to reallocate land to the black majority was due to lack of implementation and enforcement of existing constitutional provisions rather than legal obstacles. Dr Claassens, head of the Land and Accountability Research Centre at the University of Cape Town, said redistribution was hampered by successive reductions in the national budget allocated to land reform, which fell to just 0.14% in 2017, as well as long delays in acquisition of land and politically motivated prioritisation of claims, which all meant that at the current pace it would take 700 years to deal with the 397,000 existing claims. The report recommended that, rather than amend the constitution to allow expropriation without compensation, government should "use its expropriation powers more boldly … particularly in relation to land that is unutilised or under-utilised".

Delivery of the High-Level Panel report has coincided with an intensification of the debate on land reform after the National Assembly voted on 27 February by 241 votes to 83 to seek the necessary change in the constitution to allow expropriation without compensation. Parliament instructed a committee to investigate how the relevant section 25 would have to be amended, and report back by 30 August. The motion had been introduced by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) less than two weeks after Cyril Ramaphosa had ousted Jacob Zuma as national president. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) party voted en masse in favour of the motion, having approved the principle of expropriation without compensation at its elective conference in December 2017.

Ramaphosa stated at the ANC's 106th birthday celebrations in East London on 13 January that expropriation must only be done in such a way that it would not impede economic development, agricultural production, and food security, points he has stressed several times since. He has also told the police to prevent illegal land occupations, if necessary by removing squatters forcibly. EFF leader Julius Malema is currently facing legal action over calls for invasion of unoccupied land, and he has vowed to challenge the constitutionality of the Riotous Assemblies Act, which prohibits him from encouraging such action.

In the last few weeks, there has been a sharp increase in the number of reported incidents of attempted land occupation, particularly around metropolitan areas in Gauteng province. So-called 'back yard dwellers' have been claiming tracts of unused privately owned land in Olivenhoutbosch in Centurion, Blue Hills in Midrand, Weiler's Farm in Elandsfontein, and parcels of land off the Golden Highway near Eldorado Park. In the most recent incidents, on 24 March police dispersed a crowd of around 500 who had attempted to invade University of Witwatersrand-owned land in Midrand, Gauteng, and made five arrests; and on 26 March township residents set fire to several vehicles and a police station and blocked roads after police prevented them occupying vacant land in Hermanus.

Outlook and implications

The ANC came to power in 1994 with a target of transferring 30% of white-owned agricultural land to the black majority by 1999, but had still only managed 6.5% as of 2013, according to Claassens. However, the issue has returned to prominence now as a hangover of the populist turn the ANC had taken in the latter two years of Jacob Zuma's leadership as he tried to imply that the country's economic hardships were down to a failure to redistribute wealth rather than his own stewardship of the country. Ramaphosa was railroaded by the populist wing of the ANC into having to accept the principle of expropriation without compensation, and has found himself pushed towards adopting a hard-line agenda on the land issue as the EFF and Malema have seized the populist momentum.

Ramaphosa has effectively made clear his opposition to widespread land expropriation by saying economic growth, agricultural production, and food security must not be affected, principles which are clearly at odds with any form of large-scale expropriation. Ramaphosa pointed out recently that 90% of farms handed over as a result of land reform have failed. The caveats of not affecting food security and a "sustainability test" have already been written into the ANC conference resolution, providing the building blocks to push through strictly worded justifications that would prevent large-scale expropriation of farming land, even if the principle of no compensation wins the required two-thirds National Assembly approval, a vote that may not even take place in this parliament before the May 2019 general election.

The most immediate risks surrounding land expropriation relate to attempted takeovers of land around urban fringes, which will probably spread beyond the business heartland of Gauteng and continue to affect commercial enterprises whose land is often at issue. This is likely to deter investors, particularly in agri-processing, who will be worried about the sanctity of their property ownership and ongoing possibility of illegal occupations. Long-standing grievances of local communities that they should be given underutilised or unused land near townships have been prompted to spill over into invasions by the open debate on expropriation, prompted by initial adoption of the expropriation without compensation resolution by the ANC, then the parliamentary vote, and latterly by vocal EFF backing. Key indicators will be the geographical expansion of attempted land occupations, including to Zuma's former stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal province, as this will stretch the capability of security forces to keep control, increasing the probability of violent measures such as use of tear gas and water cannon to repel unruly crowds.