THE AKKERLAND SAGA - SOUTH AFRICA DESERVES BETTER
The decision of the Land Claims Court last week whereby Akkerland Boerdery once again took ownership of the two farms it originally consisted of, almost went unnoticed. The ministerial notice of expropriation of 29 March - which gave the owners seven days to vacate and leave the farms - was overturned with costs. Apparently the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform (the infamous Maite Nkoana-Mashabane) admitted her Department made a mistake in issuing the notice of expropriation.
This case has a number of interesting dimensions. The first is that Akkerland Boerdery was already in a legal battle with Coal Africa in 2014 over access to one of the farms for coal prospecting - where they received an order against them and were ordered to provide access for prospecting to Coal Africa. A number of organisations supporting Akkerland Boerdery maintain that the real reason for the expropriation is actually in order to acquire the coal reserves on the farms - for the publicised Chinese investment near Musina and Makhado (Louis Trichardt). Media reports say that the Chinese government offered to build an industrial city in this area - but that they need a reliable source of electricity, hence the coal-fired power station.
The second dimension is that where the first notice of expropriation was issued after the farm owners and the government could not reach consensus on the property price in terms of a land claim, there is now a second land claim (from a different source). The Kuvule Community (who submitted this second claim) interestingly jointly opposed the notice of expropriation together with Akkerland Boerdery. This makes the case even more complicated.
The third dimension is that Akkerland Boerdery is one of the farms on the “secret list” of targeted expropriations without compensation, which AfriForum released earlier this year. There was the usual denial from government but AfriForum insisted on the integrity of their (confidential) source.
The whole case will now be examined from scratch by the Land Claims Committee and the second land claim must be heard.