Opposing Expropriation Act is not treasonous – supporting it is, says IRR

Opposition to the Act’s draconian state assault on property rights and the socio-economic aspirations of millions, far from undermining South Africa’s national interest, is a display of a pro-growth, pro-jobs patriotism. In fact, it is the Expropriation Act’s supporters, those who deny its reckless allocation of vast powers to countless expropriating authorities and those who welcome this, who are undermining the real national interest of job-creating economic growth.

As set out in the IRR’s submission to the President and summarised in an online FAQs sheet, the Expropriation Act poses several risks to the country, the following four notable among these:

1. The Act applies to all property in South Africa, meaning any asset from land to savings to pensions can be seized by the state below fair market value. The disincentive to constructive, pro-growth asset creation is significant, so too the reality that all expropriation below market value leaves expropriated persons worse off.
2. The Act allows for the expropriation of any land without compensation on an open-ended list of justification grounds. This makes abuse by expropriating authorities essentially inevitable, as the abuse of power is already a common occurrence from state capture to sex-for-jobs scandals. The Act, therefore, creates the perfect circumstances for an expropriation mafia to wreak havoc.
3. The Act’s definitions allow for the risk of “state custodianship” whereby the constitutional protections of section 25 of the Bill of Rights are circumvented by the state seizing an asset without compensation. Two laws, the National Water Act and the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, show how this unchecked state power has already been used. The Expropriation Act extends this risk to all property.
4. The Act creates the risk whereby an expropriated owner can only contest on their own dime compensation unilaterally decided by an expropriation authority. With litigation costs already an enormous financial burden and judicial tendencies to be deferential in such proceedings, the risk of financial ruin from asset loss is immense.

Polling published by the IRR in May 2025 found that a substantive majority of 68% of South Africans, including 79% of ANC voters, oppose the Expropriation Act. The same survey found that job creation, undermined by the Act, ranks highest of all policy priorities, whereas land reform, the smoke screen often used to defend the Act, ranks 14th out of 17.

Says Hermann Pretorius, IRR head of strategic communications: “The possibility that an elected MP could be targeted by national security entities in this way is shocking and sinister. It reeks of the sort of state entitlement and political abuse and paranoia that fed the mania of the apartheid-era security state. Adding to this dark picture is the possibility that justified opposition to the disastrous Expropriation Act is considered by the state almost tantamount to treason.”

“If there is a treasonous undermining of South Africa afoot, it is not the work of those opposing the intensely unpopular Expropriation Act and its anti-growth destruction of investment and jobs and its creation of an expropriation mafia. Rather, the undermining of the national interest comes from those who champion this law and the destruction it promises.”

IRR research has long affirmed the centrality of secure property rights to a growing economy. To further this pro-growth agenda, the IRR has published the Right To Own Bill to empower all current and aspirant property owners to own securely what is theirs. The Bill can be accessed and supported here: https://irr.org.za/whatsacanbe/right-to-own.

Media contact: Hermann Pretorius IRR Head of Strategic Communications Tel: 079 875 4290 Email: hermann@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za