The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the City of Ekurhuleni can reveal that the expropriation of portion 406 of the Farm Driefontein, without compensation from Business Venture Investments 900, by the ANC-EFF coalition government in 2018 was illegal.
English soundbite by Cllr Lucky Dinake
Responses to DA council questions by MMC for Corporate and Shared Services, Ald. Sivuyile Ngodwana, stated that the prospective provision of zero-value compensation was conducted in accordance with Section 9(3) of the Housing Act, which empowers the municipal authority to expropriate land for a national housing programme.
The MMC stated that the exercise of this power adhered to the procedural guidelines established in the Expropriation Act while fundamentally relying on the stipulations of Section 25 of the Constitution.
However, for this process to have been lawful – council needed to formulate a policy framework as stipulated in the Powers Reserved for Council contained in the Systems Delegations approved on 26 October 2017.
Council did not formulate such a policy, creating a fundamental flaw in the legality of the process.
Despite this, the Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements at the time, Lebogang Maile, signed off on the expropriation notice.
The DA voted against the expropriation in Council as we could not support the abuse of the law to suit the narrow agendas of bad political actors.
However, the expropriation was effected by a majority vote in Council.
We are of the belief that this decision conflicted with legislation and breached item 3 of the Code of Conduct for Councillors as contained in the Municipal Systems Act.
As such, councillors who voted for this illegal resolution should face punitive measures.
We will explore all options available to us to institute disciplinary action against councillors in line with the recommendations contained in the Code of Conduct for Councillors.
The DA will always stand up against the tyranny of the ANC, EFF and their bedfellows in council whose short-sighted political agendas have dire, real-world consequences.