Sizwe samaYende, Lydenburg | Monday
AN Mpumalanga farmer will be the first in South Africa to have his land expropriated after he refused to sell his land to the government for R840_000 so that it could be given to a dispossessed community.
The legal team for land and agriculture minister Thoko Didiza is preparing to expropriate more than 1_270 hectares belonging to Willem Pretorius of Boomplaats farm near Lydenburg.
“This is going to be the first land expropriation case in the country. Our legal team is busy with preparations for the case,” Land Claims Commission project officer, Kwape Mmela, said.
Five portions of the farm were claimed by the Dinkwanyane community under the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1996.
Mmela said this week that the confrontation arose when two evaluators gave different values for Pretorius’ four portions. The first independent evaluator valued the land at R2,1m but the government appointed another evaluator who valued it at R840_000.
“The first amount was too much, especially considering that the previous government gave Pretorius a soft loan with below market interest rates to buy the land,” he said.
He said a farmer who owned the fifth portion of 1_027 hectares at Boomplaats, agreed to the government’s offer of R1m. The Restitution of Land Rights Act had a clause that gave the land affairs minister powers to expropriate land for the public’s benefit.
Pretorius’ lawyer, Christiaan van Dyk of Van Dyk & Theron Attorneys in Ermelo, said Pretorius could not accept the R840_000 offer because it wasn’t enough for him to buy a farm of the same standard.
He said the government’s offer was 40% less than the first evaluation and that the government had refused to hire a third evaluator. “Our client believes that there should be a settlement between the two evaluators,” Van Dyk said.
He also condemned the government for bypassing the Land Claims Court and opting for an administrative decision.
The Dinkwanyane community of 600 families bought the land for 50 000 pounds in 1906 and lived and farmed on it. Between 1957 and 1961 they were forcibly removed from the land by the department of native affairs because it did not fall in an area demarcated for blacks. The land was then transferred to state ownership.
Today, the Dinkwanyanes are scattered in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Northern Province. – African Eye News Service