Veteran member of the South African Communist Party, Jeremy Cronin, told a meeting of the African National Congress (ANC) that he was not confident that an amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution would come to fruition.
This was, he said, because the ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) were struggling to come to an agreement. He said: ‘I suspect we will not achieve an amendment of the Constitution because we would need EFF support to do so – and I think that they’re going to refuse, for grandstanding reasons.’
He added that if the Constitution was changed, the Expropriation Bill would need to be changed to align with this. (Public Works minister Patricia de Lille has repeatedly emphasised that the Bill is compliant with the Constitution as it presently exists.)
He said that more could have been achieved with the powers as they exist now.
Mathews Phosa, another long-standing member of the ANC, pointed to much the same thing. He said that attempts to come to an agreement with the EFF have been fruitless, to the extent that the latter party failed even to attend the latest meeting that had been scheduled.
Image: GCIS