Parliament, Friday, 26 February 2021 – The Ad Hoc Committee to Initiate and Introduce Legislation Amending Section 25 of the Constitution today continued engaging with the report on public participation pertaining to the expropriation of land without compensation.
The report is a culmination of the public participation processes the committee embarked on as part of processing the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill. In particular, the written submissions in response to the advertisement of the Bill are included as part of the public participation process.
The report notes that members of the public were given sufficient time to make submissions on the Bill to the committee, as evidenced by the advertisement in December 2019, January 2020 and a further extension of the submission date to the end of February 2020.
The process elicited more than 200 000 submissions giving the public’s views on the Bill, thus giving Parliament and members of the committee rich information to use in deliberating on the clauses of the Bill. The report states that it therefore fairly presents the views of submitters, who enriched the legislative processes of the Bill.
During today’s meeting it was resolved that no oral submissions would be heard from stakeholders who had already made written submissions. Committee Chairperson Dr Mathole Motshekga said: “Members of the committee are literate and educated. They can understand and read the written submissions without having to listen to oral presentations on them. All views, those made at the public hearings as well as the written submissions, will be taken into account when deliberating on this matter. The quality of the process determines the quality of the product,” he said.
The committee further resolved to accept the report as a living resource document that can be used during deliberations on the Bill. Dr Motshekga emphasised the importance of the land question by stating: “We want to strive for consensus or at least sufficient consensus. All parties that put South Africans first will give their full attention to the land question.”
The committee is expected to adopt the Bill on the constitutional amendments by 19 March 2021.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE TO INITIATE AND INTRODUCE LEGISLATION AMENDING SECTION 25 OF THE CONSTITUTION, DR MATHOLE MOTSHEKGA.
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