DA exposes a daring case of ‘Land Capture’ and marginalisation of communities in KZN
02 July 2021
Today, together with my colleagues, Dean Macpherson MP, who is the DA Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry and Martin Meyer MPL, who is the DA Spokesperson on Agriculture in the KZN Legislature, we exposed how the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Reform (DALRRD) has used delaying tactics to keep communities in the Melmoth area of KZN from obtaining full title to their land.
The DA will write to Parliament to request a joint hearing before the Trade and Industry and the Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Committees. This is to allow the affected communities to present their case and the challenges they have gone through as they struggled to secure title to their land. We will also write to the Auditor General to request a full audit of all the funds that were transferred to this third party by the DALRRD.
A claim for the restitution of rights in land in respect of property, located in the area surrounding the town of Melmoth in KwaZulu-Natal, was lodged on 8 December 1995. The claimed land consists mostly of commercial farms located within the district of Melmoth.
The Land Restitution Commission awarded the affected communities full rights to the land that they had applied for. Instead of honouring this decision, the DALRRD has stubbornly refused to transfer the reclaimed land. Instead it has used the court system to argue that it is the rightful ‘guardian’ of the land in question.
As if this was not enough, the Department has gone ahead and appointed a third party to be the caretaker of these communities' reclaimed land. The affected communities have essentially been reduced to squatters in this ‘guardian/caretaker’ arrangement that the Department has with the third party.
Minister Thoko Didiza has largely chosen to ignore the pleas that the affected communities have sent to her office to try and get their land back. The DA has complemented the communities’ efforts by submitting parliamentary questions, PAIA applications and oral questions during budget debates. In one parliamentary reply (see here), the Minister how uninformed she was about the challenges that the communities have faced over the years.
Transferring restitution land to its rightful owners has always been a challenge for the DALRRD and the Melmoth issue is just a tip of the iceberg. Another reply (see here) from Minister Didiza revealed that there are countless other communities across the country who are yet to have obtain rights to their land despite acquiring it through land restitution.
The actions of the DALRRD in Melmoth is a violation of the Land Restitution Act (Act No.22 of 1994) in 1994, which was promulgated to ensure equitable land redress to victims of land dispossessions committed by the apartheid government.
The struggle that the Melmoth communities have endured at the hands of the DALRRD is a forewarning of the chaos that awaits land administration in South Africa should state custodianship become government policy.
State custodianship of land, as advocated for by the ANC/EFF coalition through the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation, will worsen the plight of tens of thousands of land restitution claimants who have waited for years to have their cases settled.
What is clear is that the state is adamant on keeping land registered in its name rather than transfer it to communities. The ANC government wants to keep South Africans as permanent tenants of the state. This is precisely why the DA is taking a firm stand against the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution because it will trample on people’s right to justice and ownership of private property.
Statement issued by Annette Steyn MP - DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform, and Rural Development, 2 July 2021
