An article that the national government seeks to include in the National Development Plan and that proposes the figure of the “Express expropriation” in 21 days and without the right to appeal or deny, has generated controversy in different sectors.
As reported by the representative to the Chamber for the Green Alliance, Katherine Miranda, supposedly the National Land Agency plans to include in the National Development Plan a procedure that would allow said mechanism.
The leader stated that what the Government intends is that, at the moment of determining that a property is of “public utility”the State could buy it from its owner according to the cadastral and non-commercial price, a process that would take 21 days.
Miranda stated in this regard that “what they are presenting is not land purchase, but express expropriation. If we are going to talk about land purchase, there are two articles already within the Development Plan, which we have studied, which determine what the voluntary purchase procedure and with commercial appraisal will be like. What they want to present right now is an express expropriation, where in 21 days, they expropriate a person from land.”
Panic
This article generated concern among several congressmen, who have denounced that the Government intends to expropriate land without respecting the right to defense and due process.
For his part, the representative to the Chamber for the Conservative Party, Wadith Manzur, called on the National Government not to generate panic with the word “expropriation” and affirmed that it is not true, as the government says, that the article in question has been suppressed, as stated by President Gustavo Petro.
Manzur said that “I want to invite the Historical Pact to make it clear to Colombians that article 55 of the Development Plan is intact, it has not been touched. If the Government considers that there are things to correct, this Congress is willing to discuss so that this land purchase policy can go ahead but let’s not generate that panic, let’s not generate that crisis”.
“Different Mechanism”
Referring to the controversy over the “express expropriation” President Gustavo Petro denied that they intend to expropriate with an article proposed in the National Development Plan and pointed out that what they seek is to “create a new mechanism.”
According to Petro, the proposal presented seeks to create “a different mechanism, without expropriation”which he hopes will be approved in the remaining debates, which will start next Tuesday.
The president emphasized that it is urgent to speed up the land purchase process to comply with the peace agreements with the Farc, otherwise “there will be no peace.”
During his recent visit to Valle del Cauca, where he handed over a property to peasants in Zarzal, the president stated that the Congress of the Republic eliminated the article that allowed the purchase of land and, with that decision, “only one article remains in the law and it is that must be expropriated, in order to hand it over to the Colombian peasantry”.
As will be remembered, when he was a presidential candidate, Petro signed a document filed with a notary that if he arrived at the Casa de Nariño It would not expropriate the assets of any Colombian.
On the other hand, the new Minister of Agriculture, Jhenifer Mojica, stated that this is not an initiative that is supported by the Executive, which does not have the need to promote it, since expropriation is contemplated in the law.
The official stated that “from the national government we intend to facilitate different mechanisms that exist today in the legislation, so that the purchase process is facilitated. We support some initiatives that we support from the national government”.
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