IMF Supports South Africa Land Theft Provided It’s “Rules Based”

via mishtalk:

A land grab in Zimbabwe led to capital and human flight followed by hyperinflation. South Africa is on a similar path.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) plans to change the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation, as most of it is still owned by members of the white minority.

The ANC announced the plans, backed off them but now they are back on again, this time with IMF Backing Provided it’s ‘Rules Based’.

The debate erupted again last week when U.S. President Donald Trump said he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to study South African “land and farm seizures” and the “killing of farmers”. South Africa accused Trump of stoking racial divisions.

The IMF Fund’s senior resident representative in South Africa Montfort Mlachila told Reuters “We are in full support of the need to undertake land reforms in order to address the issues of inequality.”

Land Reform?

We are not talking about land reform, we are talking about a land grab theft.

The ANC announced the plan, backed off and now it appears the plan is back on, with support from the IMF.

IMF Financial Support

Mlachila said South Africa was not expected to seek IMF financial support due to its deep domestic financial markets and access to international markets for financing its balance of payments and fiscal deficits.

“We really don’t see much need for recourse to financing from the IMF,” Mlachila said.

If there is human and capital flight after this theft, South Africa will indeed be headed for IMF support.

Recall that the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe began with a land grab in the interest of “fairness”.

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In the sake of “fairness” the Zimbabwe currency went to zero, for everybody.

Trump’s Controversial Tweet

Counter Claim

twitter.com/GovernmentZA/status/1032507810460909568

NPR: The U.S. Embassy cited a recent report by AgriSA, a nonprofit industry group that represents 70,000 commercial farmers, that estimated that there were 47 farm murders from 2017 to 2018, fewer than at any time in the past 19 years. Police records documented 74 farm murders out of a total of 19,016 total murders in South Africa between April 2016 and March 2017.

Customers Must Honor Home loan Payments even if Land is Seized

A South African bank has sparked a firestorm of criticism after informing customers they would still have to pay off their mortgage even if their property is seized by the government.

In an email circulating on social media, an official from Nedbank — one of the country’s big five banks — informed the customer that “bond payments remain due” regardless of any expropriation, “with or without compensation”.

A Nedbank spokesman said clients were urged to “be patient as this process unfolds”. “Until there’s further clarity on this process, it is business as usual at Nedbank,” he said.

It comes as tensions reach fever pitch after Donald Trump’s controversial comments last week on the racially charged issue of land redistribution sparked an international incident and accusations the US President was peddling a “white supremacist” conspiracy theory.

Civil rights group Afriforum, which represents the white Afrikaner minority, alleges that white farmers are being targeted in a brutal campaign of politically motivated farm attacks.

The exact numbers of people killed in such attacks is disputed. The AgriSA union representing commercial farmers says the number was 47 last year, Afriforum says the real number is 84.

Bottom Line

There are a lot of charges and suppositions on both sides that obscure one simple point: One does not fix injustice with more injustice.

Any plan to confiscate land in the name of “justice” is not just and is bound to fail.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock

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