Dear Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development,

Acknowledging first and foremost the injustices and iniquities of the abhorrent Apartheid regime and condemning such inhumane system, I would like to submit that the proposed legislation to amend the Constitution in order to legitimise the Expropriation ol Land without compensation is going to be detrimental to the future of our Country and its People, particularly the poor, compromising economic stability, racial harmony and the dream of a just society and strong economy for the benefit of all the People.
This move appears to me to be a last ditch move by the ANC led Government to deflect responsibility and appeased the people who for 26 years have been made promises for a better life with no fulfilment of that promise.
26 year of poor governance, the unwillingness and negligence to maintain and augment existing infrastructure, (look at all the SOE). The inability to grow our economy, better our education, deliver better health services, create jobs, upskill workers; the deterioration of service delivery, nepotism, cadre deployment, corruption and looting have created a system rooted in patronage and not in meritocracy. All this has got the Government to the point that in order to deflect the responsibility for such failures it has resorted to the very dangerous playing of the 'race card'(poor Freedom Charter) and ultimately to this ill advised move to Expropriate land without compensation.
it will be obvious to those who will look at this move with an eye to Historical precedents, that we will be precipitated into confirming South Africa's status as a 'Failed State' with all its dire consequences.
The Government should be thinking of sparing the people of South Africa from a future of poverty and hardship.
Implement instead good economic policies for the benefit of all. Let meritocracy be the deciding factor in the appointment of leaders in all spheres. Let us all look at where the real problems are. the problems that have got us on the edge of a precipice.
It is not 'white monopoly capital' nor the Stellembosch Mafia that have got us to the point of ruin, but 26 year of malgovernance.