Johannesburg - The Institute for Race Relations has been criticised following its endorsement of an unverified list that claims to list farms that will be expropriated without compensation by the government.
The liberal think tank believes the list, which was drawn up by Afriforum and includes 195 properties, is legitimate.
Afriforum released the list earlier this week and has been accused of fearmongering with information that has not been verified.
The group has spoken against the ANC policy which plans to expropriate land without compensation. Parliament recently held country-wide public hearings on the possibility of amending the Constitution to allow for expropriation of land without compensation.
The IRR has now launched a campaign which seeks to garner public support to petition President Cyril Ramaphosa not to allow for the ANC’s expropriation policy to be implemented.
The organisation has even gone as far as claiming the policy could lead to the South African economy declining like the Zimbabwean and Venezuelan economies.
“We predict that the policy of expropriation without compensation will trigger accelerated currency devaluation, stall foreign and domestic investment flows, drive the economic growth rate downwards – and possibly into recession by 2019 – and increase unemployment and poverty rates. Taken to its extremes, the consequences could be as severe as those in Venezuela and Zimbabwe,” said the institute.
The organisation also accused the ANC of not considering the impact such a policy would have on the markets, saying it could lead the country into a recession by 2019.
A number of people have criticised the organisation for legitimizing the list by Afriforum.
Agri SA earlier criticized Afriforum for publishing the list as it had caused panic among farm owners.
The ANC had announced that the party had drawn up a list of 139 farms to be expropriated without compensation by the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development. But the party said it was still in support of the Parliamentary process and that land redistribution should not be done unlawfully with land grabs.
Some social media users slammed the campaign on Tuesday.
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