South Africa is sitting on a time bomb with its plans where it is envisaged that the government will expropriate farm land in a fashion similiar to the Zimbabwe-state sanctioned land grabs. This move that has been widely condemned by analysts will see the government going into an open war path with land owners as it has emerged that the government is most likely to resolve the land issue the "Zim Style". Many South African officials have been in the past making public statements that the government may broaden land seizures in order to boost black land ownership .Vast tracts of land in South Africa are in the hands of white owners and the government has always made it known that historical land imbalances need to be corrected. But the official diplomatic stance by the government of South Africa is of denial that the government is considering any Zimbabwe-style land grabs.
Thus far expropriation has only been used in cases of land restitution -- where the government seeks to buy back white-owned land that was taken from blacks under apartheid, and where landowners and officials fail to agree on a price for the government to purchase it. The Land Department has always indicated that land reform apart from restitution also included redistribution and tenure.