Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Dean Macpherson has defended SA’s new Expropriation Act, saying it is an improvement on the 1975 iteration of such legislation.
Speaking during a panel discussion on the act’s impact on agriculture at the NAMPO 2025 festival in Bothaville, Macpherson said the word “compensation” had been weaponised by politicians. His party, the DA, is currently
challenging the act in court.
He said the new legislation seeks to standardise the procedure in which expropriation occurs, which was a “dramatic improvement” on 1975 laws that did not offer such clarity and procedural safeguards. Macpherson added that SA’s expropriation legislation also contained greater safeguards and clarity than the federal law of the US, which has its own form of expropriation legislation called “eminent domain”.
“I would argue that, actually, the risk of the 1975 act was far more heightened than this act,” said Macpherson, whose ministry will have the main mandate to apply the Expropriation Act — although other ministries as well as municipalities can also rely on the legislation.
“If anyone wants to live in this absolutist world where the state must just pay whatever you want, you’re actually arguing from a form of extortion, because that is exactly what that is going to lead to. You’ve got to have parameters on how these things work.”
A measured discussion at the NAMPO event became increasingly fiery as Macpherson sparred with the Institute of Race Relations’ (IRR) Hermann Pretorius, where the minister said critics of the act should “beware what they wish for”, hinting that future governments may impose even more draconian laws.
“If the act were to be … struck down in its entirety, and we go back to 1975, I don’t know what’s going to come after that. In politics, you must be careful what you wish for, because sometimes you can get it. What comes after that is open to a new Parliament that has very different dynamics,” said Macpherson.
“Let’s try [to] deal with the contradictions, let's try to deal with those issues and let's safeguard what, by and large, in my view, is an act that provides those definitions and those clarities that are needed — that are above 1975 and above US federal law — and then move forward in a constructive way.”
Macpherson cited the dilapidated state of SA’s inner cities, characterised by abandoned buildings whose owners had often fled the country. He said it was not feasible for government to pay a market-related rate for such buildings when the cost of outstanding rates, evicting illegal occupiers and demolishing the structure may exceed the compensation value.
“Why would anyone believe that it would be just and equitable to pay market value for that, despite all the costs that are owed to the government?” the minister said.
Macpherson said in such a situation, nil compensation may be deemed just and equitable given the burden on the state to correct the problem. By contrast, he said the courts would not consent to offering nil compensation for a farm once they considered its economic value and productive use.
As a further example of where nil compensation might be justified, Macpherson cited examples of people who had colluded with Eskom officials to figure out where transmission lines would be rolled out. He says these individuals then bought up the land only to try to sell it to Eskom later at massive markups.
“Is it just and equitable to offer them what they want? I don’t think that’s in the interests of the broader community or the state,” said Macpherson. “Maybe the problem is the word ‘expropriation’. It has been weaponised by politicians.”
The panel discussion showed that the act introduces concepts that were absent from the 1975 legislation, such as public interest being cause for expropriation. Macpherson also dismissed the notion that the Expropriation Act introduces the notion of nil compensation for the first time in SA law.
“People confuse an unlawful act of expropriation without compensation as expropriation with nil compensation. Nil compensation is clearly defined, and they are not the same thing,” said Macpherson. “Nil is a form of compensation.”
In response to a muttered comment from Pretorius, the minister told him “I’m talking”, to which the IRR head responded: “Nonsense, though.”
Macpherson reiterated his point, saying “nil can be a form of compensation – that is absolutely true”.
Nevertheless, Macpherson said he did not foresee farms being expropriated with nil compensation. He said he had been involved in mapping out the process on how the Expropriation Act would apply to farms to try to help “the fearmongers understand.”
“I’m utterly convinced that nil is not an acceptable or applicable outcome on a farm,” said Macpherson. “No court will come to that determination because it does not align with the Constitution.”
The IRR’s Pretorius argued that the wide scope of the act was concerning, particularly given that it empowered more than 400 expropriating authorities.
“In fact, section 12(3) is an open-ended list of grounds for nil compensation, meaning any High Court, the Court of Appeals, and the Constitutional Court, can expand that list.”
Pretorius said the act only allowed courts to approve or deny compensation and that it is up to the expropriating authorities to determine whether their offer is fair, while targets of expropriation would then need to approach the courts at their own cost to obtain either a “thumbs-up or thumbs-down.”
Jaco Kleynhans, Solidarity’s head of public liaison, said while he trusted Macpherson, the act would not necessarily be implemented in a neutral political environment in future. He specifically referenced claims by Deputy President Paul Mashatile that the act be used to promote land reform.
Nevertheless, Kleynhans said while he did not see anything in the wording of the act that suggested there would be large-scale confiscation of farms, he equally did not agree with those who said it would be “great act” that would be well implemented.
“I don’t know who will be the minister of public works in a few years’ time. I don’t know who will sit in courts. I don’t know who will be the people who will make a decision on expropriation,” he said. “I don’t like the process prescribed in this act. It will destroy certain people’s businesses.”
