Top SA officials meet US counterparts to explain controversial Expropriation Act

A delegation of senior SA officials has just returned from the US, where they briefed senior White House, State Department and Treasury officials to clarify Pretoria’s positions on controversial issues such as the Expropriation Act.

The delegation was led by SA Director-General of International Relations and Cooperation Zane Dangor.

It met Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council Brendan McNamara, acting Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Troy Fitrell and senior US Treasury officials “to address bilateral priorities” and clarify “key issues and misconceptions”, according to Chrispin Phiri, Dirco spokesperson. The US officials had been “cordial and receptive”, he said.

Dangor’s delegation had also visited the United Nations General Assembly in New York to brief members on SA’s G20 presidency.

“The General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the priorities and theme of the South African G20 Presidency,” Phiri said. Dangor is also the “sherpa” – chief official – of SA’s G20 presidency. SA’s G20 themes are solidarity, equality and sustainability, which have been rejected by the Trump administration because they echo the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusivity) and climate change agendas in the US, which are anathema to US President Donald Trump.

In Washington, Dangor’s delegation “directly addressed the perception that the South African government’s policies are designed to violate the human rights of minorities in post-apartheid South Africa,” Phiri said, referring to persistent Trump administration criticism that the SA government is seizing farmland, particularly from white Afrikaners.

Lobby groups AfriForum and Solidarity have persuaded Trump officials that Afrikaans farmers are being persecuted. Trump has offered them refugee status in the US.

Phiri’s statement said Dangor’s team had explained that the Expropriation Act’s clause that allows the expropriation of property without compensation in some cases was “not designed to facilitate unlawful land seizures and undermine property investment”.

It was rather designed to be used: 

“(1) where the land is not being used and the owner’s main purpose is not to develop the land or use it to generate income, but to benefit from appreciation of its market value;

“(2) where an organ of state holds land that it is not using for its core functions and is not reasonably likely to require the land for its future activities in that regard, and the organ of state acquired the land for no consideration;

“(3) where an owner has abandoned the land by failing to exercise control over it despite being reasonably capable of doing so;

“(4) 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.”