6 February 2020 - To revive South Africa’s economy and the interest of those able to invest will demand fundamental reforms, of which rethinking empowerment and reversing threats to property rights are but two among many. No amount of explanation will substitute for this.
Media
Every week we reach hundreds of thousands of people through placing arguments in the media in support of the principles we stand for. No other advocacy group in the country does as much as we do to promote support for policies that defend your right, and that of your community, to make decisions about your own life free from counter-productive government interference.
5 February 2020 - Last week, mortgage lending firm, SA Home Loans, took to social media to state that in the event of a client’s property being expropriated, the client would remain liable to settle the outstanding mortgage balance. Our enquiries suggest that firms across the financial services sector are taking a similar line. This underscores the deeply troubling moral, legal, and financial ramifications of the government’s expropriation without compensation (EWC) proposals.
4 February 2020 - The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) today launches an open-letter campaign to put to insurance companies two cardinal questions relating to the government’s plans to enable expropriation without compensation (EWC). The questions are: Do any current home insurance policies sold by these insurance companies cover clients against the loss of property in the event of EWC? And, if not, do insurance companies intend creating such policies?
3 February 2020 - The primary role of judges is to adjudicate on disputes - including disputes as to how much compensation should be paid on expropriation.
3 February 2020 - The overall strategy is one of firmness in principle, but dexterity in tactics. The ANC can therefore afford an apparent climbdown on the proposed shift of power from the courts to the executive, while garnering wider support for its overriding design to remove property rights.
2 February 2020 - Whether these policy drives emerge from ideological obsessions, intraparty jockeying or a desire to extract ever more from business and citizens, matters less than the destructiveness and recklessness they embody. And at least we know President Cyril Ramaphosa isn’t coming to save the day either. That means civil society, business and all who hope for a prosperous future need to speak boldly against these plans, and hold to account anyone tempted to sneak a side-deal at the cost of the rest of society.
2 February 2020 - Die voormalige Johannesburgse DA-burgemeester Herman Mashaba beloof om teen Junie vanjaar ’n nuwe politieke party op die been te bring wat wil deelneem aan die munisipale verkiesing volgende jaar. Daar is heelwat wat in Mashaba se guns tel.
31 January 2020 - The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) yesterday delivered to Parliament the names of over 200 000 South Africans who oppose the government’s attempts to undermine property rights through expropriation without compensation (EWC).
30 January 2020 - Effective land reform is still required, but the Draft Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill of 2019 (the Draft Bill) will needlessly undermine the property rights of all South Africans: from the 1 million whites with home ownership to the 8.5 million black, ‘coloured’ and Indian families who own houses too. It will also hurt the 17.5m black people with customary plots, and the thousands of black South Africans who have bought more than 6 million hectares of urban and rural land since 1991.
30 January 2020 - Prescribed assets will not save SA’s rural towns. What will save them (and, in time, SA itself) is real economic reform that will enable businesses to thrive, create jobs and grow wealth.
29 January 2020 - And it’s a salutary lesson for anyone vesting their own hopes in government’s ‘land reform’ drive.
29 January 2020 - The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) will be delivering to Parliament tomorrow the names of over 200 000 South Africans who oppose the government’s attempts to undermine property rights through expropriation without compensation (EWC).