I think it’s fair to say that the majority of South Africans believe that land redistribution in South Africa is long overdue.

Of course, debate will continue to rage, and the idea of land expropriation without compensation is a particularly divisive topic.

Perhaps that’s because there’s a general mistrust in the ANC’s ability to properly manage and enact such a process, and getting it wrong would spell “socio-economic disaster”.

For a lesson closer to home, people often point at Zimbabwe, but Uganda also offers some insight.

Mugabi John Socrates, a co-founder of Action for Liberty and Economic Development and a graduate of Kyambogo University, Uganda, has penned an interesting article on City Press.

Unlike that similarly-named Zimbabwean chap, Mugabi says we need to exercise caution, with “a similar phenomenon happening in Uganda in the 1960s and ‘70s”, and “South Africa should learn from this experience and not abandon respect for property rights”.

We’ll skip ahead to what happened in 1972 when the military President of Uganda, Idi Amin (pictured above and below), “declared an economic war, and announced that God had told him in a dream that Ugandans were being grossly exploited”:

Amin announced that all foreigners, many of whom were nationals of Britain, had 90 days to leave Uganda, accusing them of “milking the cow without feeding it”… Upon expulsion, all their property devolved to a government body called the Departed Asians Property Custodian Board that then handled the distribution and transition of these properties into the hands of black Ugandans. This property was effectively expropriated without compensation from their Indian owners on the back of a racialist narrative. This decision led to a disastrous breakdown of the economy, plunging it into extreme inflation and the collapse of industries as a result of handing them to unskilled management that squandered them.

By the end of the regime, the Ugandan economy had the lowest growth rate anywhere in Africa, and it has never truly recovered from these vagaries. Today, as a result, Uganda’s currency, the shilling, is the least valued in the East and Central Africa region, and the country has never had a favourable balance of payment. Uganda continues to suffer from land conflicts that arose out of the expropriation, with later efforts to normalise the injustice being meted out on the people.

Sadly, when land expropriation is bungled, it’s the impoverished and powerless that end up suffering the worst:

Besides causing a humanitarian crisis, the expropriation of Indians’ property did not fundamentally better the status of black Ugandans. It plunged the country into a crisis where basic household commodities like soap and sugar became products accessible only to the privileged elite. Despite the imbalances and inequality that is often borne from historical events like colonialism, it is clear that expropriation without compensation or racialist governance should never be an option and should never be implemented, since those who suffer most in the end are those the policy was ostensibly designed to help… The poorest of the poor are always the ones forced into starvation and eventually exodus from the countries of their birth, when property rights are disrespected by their governments.

When you consider that Julius Malema has long been nicknamed ‘Kidi Amin’. you realise exactly why the EFF coming into any real power would be such a disaster.

Mugabi finishes with how he thinks South Africa should approach the process:

A better solution for South Africa’s problems is to acknowledge the imbalances of the past and address it through well-considered, compensation-based strategies that are transitional in nature – not permanent, like a constitutional amendment that will entrench expropriation without compensation – and not economically drastic. Deprived groups should be assisted through the transfer of skills and technology, all based on the logic of sacrosanct property rights.

That last line is especially important, as history has shown that without the transfer of the necessary skills and technology, the expropriated land can often lie unused, with mass food shortages following close behind.

Sadly, “well-considered” is not something the ANC is known for, but we live in hope that the process is carried out with the best interests of the South African people in mind.

[source:citypress]