The plan to expropriate buildings without compensation in South Africa

The government is moving forward with its plan to expropriate buildings, although some legal challenges may make the process slower and more difficult than they would want.

Public Works Deputy Minister Sihle Zikalala has called for the expropriation without compensation of hijacked buildings in the Johannesburg CBD.

This follows an appeal from President Cyril Ramaphosa, who called on provisional governments to utilise the Expropriation Act to reclaim hijacked and abandoned properties.

Controversially, South Africa’s new Expropriation Act allows for property to be taken for zero compensation in cases where it is just and equitable.

The Act gives four examples of such cases. It includes cases where land is not being used and the owner’s primary goal is not to develop or generate income from it but rather to benefit from an increase in its market value.

It also includes abandoned property and property for which incredibly high levels of debt are owed to municipalities.

The Act specifies that where the market value of the land is equivalent to, or less than, the present value of direct state investment or subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the land, it may be equitable to expropriate the land without compensation.

“Here, the classic example is the one of abandoned inner-city buildings where the owners have absconded and they owe millions in rates to the municipality,” the University of Western Cape’s Professor Ruth Hall explained on Newzroom Afrika.

“There are also cases where a state entity is holding property and not using it for its intended purpose, which is a major problem.”

Deputy Minister Zikalala explained on Newzroom Afrika that this call to action to expropriate buildings is part of President Ramaphosa’s District Development Model.

This program aims to improve government service delivery, focusing on 44 Districts and 8 Metros around the country as development spaces that can be used as service delivery centres and for economic development, including job creation.

Zikalala explained that, like many cities, Johannesburg is affected by dilapidated buildings left by businesses when they built new offices in nearby suburbs.

For example, some of the empty buildings in the city were previously owned by big companies that have since moved to Sandton and the surrounding areas.

Some abandoned buildings were left because they were no longer generating income. “All of those buildings are posing a health risk and are hazardous to communities living there,” Zikalala said.

Many of these buildings are now occupied by illegal occupants, and in some cases, the number of people living there has increased to a point where it poses a risk.

“We strongly believe that these are the buildings that should be the start of expropriation, and this gives a meaning or an essence to the aims and objectives of this Expropriation Act,” he said.

For this reason, they have agreed “that these buildings should be identified and we should embark on a process to expropriate them through the Expropriation Act.”

However, evicting occupants, including illegal ones, is not simple under South Africa’s legal framework.

The law mandates that if people have occupied a piece of land or a building for more than 24 hours and the owner has not applied for eviction, the government must provide an alternative place for them to go.

However, Zikalala explained that the law does not require the government to provide them with a building in which to reside.

In other words, the government only needs to allocate a specific piece of land with temporary structures where these individuals can go and build their own shelter.

In many cases, he said that these buildings are occupied by illegal immigrants, which means that the state will be undertaking repatriation, and not rehousing, of these individuals.

With expropriations set to increase going forward, Zikalala stressed that this legal framework governing evictions will need to be challenged.