South Africa’s new Expropriation Act, which was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in January 2025, has been at the centre of a political storm set off by the new US administration under President Donald Trump.
The Expropriation Act is not entirely new. It mainly updates the existing legislation from 1975 to align it with the constitution of democratic South Africa. But some have misinterpreted it as making room for land grabs by the state. That’s not what it does in reality. Property rights remain intact in South Africa.
Hot on the heels of this furore has been a notice from the minister of land reform and rural development, Mzwanele Nyhontso, that the government is embarking on a new bit of legislation, the “Equitable Access to Land Bill”.
