Expropriation without compensation is a red herring, not a solution to land reform -- and the Constitution doesn't need amending as it is a powerful enabling instrument, even if successive governments had chosen not to use it. That's the long and short of Day One of public hearings from academics and organisations representing agriculture, rural communities and workers, who had all made written submissions to Parliament. It's not what emerged in the countrywide public hearings. What unfolded on Tuesday was a carefully choreographed political performance in several acts.

Constitutional review committee co-chairperson Vincent Smith was nowhere in sight at starting time. It soon emerged he'd taken time out -- and also offered to step down from all the committee chairpersons positions he holds -three at the last count -- until parliamentary ethics and ANC integrity committee proceedings are completed.

Smith, in a public statement, confirmed receiving R615,000 as a "personal loan... repayable by me" in 2015 and 2016 for his daughter's university education from Angelo Agrizzi, then chief operating officer at facilities management group Bosasa, which which...