United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that the South African government’s proposal for expropriation without compensation (EWC) would be ‘disastrous for that economy, and most importantly for the South African people’.
Washington’s top diplomat was speaking at a joint press conference with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew in Addis Ababa on Tuesday on the final day of an Africa visit which Associated Press described as being ‘largely aimed at countering China’s influence’ in Africa.
Bloomberg quoted Pompeo as saying: ‘South Africa is debating an amendment to permit the expropriation of private property without compensation. That would be disastrous for that economy, and most importantly for the South African people.’
Pompeo’s statement is judged to be the strongest yet of any senior international figure, and reflects mounting concern among South Africa’s most important trading partners about the trajectory the country is following under President Cyril Ramaphosa.
According to the report, Pompeo said African economies needed ‘strong rule of law, respect for property rights, regulation that encourages investment’ in order to achieve inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
The report said Pompeo told reporters that the EWC policy proposal was an example of centralized planning that had failed in other African states like Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
In August 2018, Reuters reported that US President Donald Trump had asked Pompeo to ‘closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures’ and the killing of farmers there.
In a post on Twitter, Trump said: ‘I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and large scale killing of farmers.’