SIZWE SAMA YENDE, Groblersdal | Tuesday 6.35pm.
THE Human Rights Commission has decided to take a Groblersdal farmer in Mpumalanga to court for refusing to bury a worker who stayed on the farm for 22 years.
Diepkloof farm owner Ben De Beer refused to bury Kosabo Koos Skhosana, (52) who died from flu-related complications on July 15. Skhosana had lived and worked on the farm since 1977.
HRC commissioner Jody Kollapen said on Tuesday that the purpose of the action against de Beer was to seek a new interpretation of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act, to allow for farm workers with permanent residential rights on farms to be buried there.
At the moment the Act is silent on what happens when such workers die.
“We feel the Act should be saying something about the burial rights of farm labourers,” Kollapen said.
Northern Province farmers, in particular, refuse to allow dead farm workers with residential rights to be buried on their land, partly for fear of land claims.
Mpumalanga safety and security MEC Steve Mabona said on Monday that the burial dispute was not a debate about legislation, but about human rights.
Mabona said Skhosana’s family could not be prevented from burying Skhosana if de Beer had no court interdict against the burial. — African Eye News Service