MALEMA WANTS TO EXPROPRIATE THE LAND ON WHICH URBAN HOUSES ARE BUILT TOO
The leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema has said he wants the land on which bonded houses have been built to be expropriated without compensation too.
On Thursday, Malema held a business breakfast in Braamfontein where editors had direct interaction with the leadership of the EFF. He said: "land would become the main condition for the ANC if it wants to get support in 2019". He added that his party wishes the ANC support would drop enough to need the EFF to rule.
In an attempt to dismiss fears that investors would leave if the state took land from citizens in the implementation of land expropriation without compensation, he said: “We wrote a parliamentary question to all departments asking them how many hectares of land they own and what it is used for. The same goes to the province and municipalities.
"We want to prove one thing – people say when the land is in the hands of the state‚ there will not be investors. It is a myth. It is wrong. Most of the state-owned land has actually been leased out and people are investing in it. Knowing they are not owning it‚ yet they put money in it.”
He continued by explaining how the EFF wants the bill to be implemented across the country.
“We are nationalising the land and everything that comes with the land underground‚ not these things on top. If you’ve got a bond‚ we will talk to the bank that we have taken the land. [We will ask the bank] how much was the land and they will tell us and we will say that is gone without compensation. You will be left with [only] the bond of the house.
"We’ve never said we are nationalising the houses. We are nationalising the land.
“If you have a bonded house‚ you must continue to pay but we will give you a discount because we have taken that debt away from you. We are not going to pay any bank‚” Malema said.
He then went on to explain "many examples" of private investors investing in state-owned land.
“Take Ushaka Marine [World] for instance. That facility is owned by the municipality. People have invested in it.
They’ve put their own money in it. A lot of investment that gets to be announced by the state. The majority of those are done on state land.
"We are going to release a list of huge projects which go into billions of rands happening on state land. People never said that we cannot put money on this project because the land is owned by the state‚” he said.
What do you think of his strategy, will it work or will it fail like so many other socialist structures in the past?