A SERIES of spats between officials of the Northern and Eastern Transvaal governments over who has the right to administer the Bushbuckridge area, a tract of land that straddles the two provinces, could escalate into a mini- border war involving two strong ANC regions.
The premiers of each province agreed last year that the territory — a mix of resettlement villages, agricultural estates and game reserves — would be ceded from the Northern Transvaal to the Eastern Transvaal. However, formal transfer has been held up by complex constitutional procedures leading to administrative chaos and escalating tension on the ground.
“Both provincial governments are preparing for local government elections, they are each setting up Reconstruction and Development Programme committees while the Northern Transvaal is still responsible for paying civil servants. Sometimes there can be six local committees in one village and people here are just confused about where they are in South Africa,” says one informant.
Eastern Transvaal Premier Mathews Phosa is keen to incorporate the territory as rapidly as possible because it will form a political power base for himself and his closest allies in the provincial government.
His Finance MEC Jacques Modipane and Public Works MEC Luckson Mathebula both have their political power bases in the disputed region, where most people speak Pedi or Tsonga. They have been criticised by other communities in the Eastern Transvaal, which are mainly Swazi-speaking, for being “outsiders”.
The heavily populated area is a bastion of ANC support and contains lucrative agro-industry projects as well as the country’s richest private game reserves. With local government elections looming, Phosa and his inner circle can only consolidate popular support in their province by formally incorporating the area.
Their problem is that a series of complex constitutional procedures have to be followed before this border change can take place and the delay is causing administrative chaos and tension in the villages of the region.
The interim Constitution stipulates that a referendum had to be held within six months of the April elections last year to determine the status of disputed border areas like Bushbuckridge. That deadline has passed, leaving other, more complex, methods for resolving the issue.
The borders can now only be redrawn if both provincial legislatures pass resolutions to approve the change, the Senate votes by a two-thirds majority to amend provincial borders as outlined in the provincial constitution and this is then ratified by a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament.
Mohammed Valli Moosa, Deputy Minister for Constitutional Affairs, told the Weekly Mail & Guardian that the Eastern Transvaal government had passed a resolution approving the change but that the Northern Transvaal had not yet done so.
The northern province wants two regions in the Eastern Transvaal, Groblersdal and Marble Hall, to be incorporated into their region in exchange for ceding Bushbuckridge — a set of issues that has not been addressed in the resolution passed by Phosa’s legislature.
Thus the constitutional procedures need to begin from square one. “If one province does not pass the resolution then there is no way the boundaries can be redrawn,” says Moosa. “The border remains fixed in terms of the
In the meantime, the Northern Transvaal government has cancelled a number of rallies planned for this month after being told by Modipane that he could not guarantee they would not spark violence. Without a mechanism such as a referendum in place to resolve and speed up the transfer delays, it is possible that conflict will escalate.
The volatile region, which is made up of bits and pieces from the old Gazankulu and Lebowa homelands, has been the site of ethnic border conflicts between Pedi-speakers and Tsonga-speakers in the past.