Parliament's constitutional review committee will on Tuesday begin nationwide public consultations on whether Section 25 of the constitution, which deals with property rights, needs to be amended to allow the state to expropriate land without compensation.
The committee, split into two teams, will begin in Northern Cape and Limpopo, where it will hold four public meetings in each province until the end of the month.
The teams will then visit the remaining provinces until the first week in August.
The committee, which was mandated by the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, called for written public submissions on the review of section 25 of the Constitution and other sections where necessary, to make it possible for the state to expropriate land in the public interest without compensation.
It has already received 700,000 written submissions by the closing date on June 15. A service provider has been tasked with analysing each submission.
Once the public consultations have concluded, the committee will then hear from individuals or organisations which had made written submissions and had, in addition, asked to make oral submissions. This will be conducted over 10 days.
The committee will thereafter deliberate on the draft report in September, before tabling its recommendations to the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces.
In March, the ANC released a full report on the outcomes of its national conference in December last year, when the highly controversial resolution to implement policies for land expropriation without compensation was taken.
According to the report, land expropriation without compensation must be rolled out in a manner that "strengthens the agricultural sector", "improves economic growth" and "meaningfully addresses inequality and unemployment". It must not endanger food security or undermine future investment in the economy.
To perform this, the ANC has decided to prioritise the redistribution of vacant, unused and underutilised state land, as well as land held for speculation and hopelessly indebted land.
Afterwards, active measures will be put in place to drive land redistribution, such as a land tax, support for black farmers, and preferential allocation of water rights and infrastructure provisions to black farmers. The party has promised to ensure effective programmes to increase training and support to those who receive land.