OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday
THE South African government has suspended its plans to expropriate an Mpumalanga farm, and will instead reopen negotiations with the aggrieved farmer in an effort to resolve the issue amicably.
Wallace Mgoqi, the country’s chief land claims commissioner, said the land ministry had shelved plans to expropriate Willem Pretorius’s cattle farm Boomplaats but still intended to acquire the land. They would try to find a price at which he was prepared to sell the 1 270 hectares of land near Lydenburg in northeastern Mpumalanga province, Mgoqi said.
The move came hours after Pretorius’ lawyer took the matter to the land claims court and served legal documents on Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza asking her to revoke the expropriation notice.
Pretorius had indicated that he would be prepared to fight the matter in the highest courts if the land ministry proceeded to take the land he bought in 1982.
Mgoqi said the ministry’s decision was “nothing to do with us fearing to lose the court case”.
Instead, he said in a statement, it was a “confirmation of government’s commitment” to reaching settlements with farmers on the price of land that is needed for restitution.
In this case, government wants the land to resettle some 600 families of the Dinkwanyane tribe that was forcibly removed from there by the former white regime in the 1950s and 60s.
Pretorius has demanded R2.1m for it and rejected government’s much smaller offer of R850_000, which it arrived at partly by subtracting soft loans he received from the apartheid government.
The case has seen tempers flare in the agriculture community, with 400 farmers last week protesting in support of Pretorius and warning that the land situation in South Africa might become as dire as that in Zimbabwe.
But the country’s largest body representing farmers, Agri SA, called on Pretorius to negotiate further with government while the ministry pointed out that it had managed to settle more 11 000 land restitution cases since the end of apartheid. – AFP
ZA*NOW:
Farmer vows to fight state land grab March 15, 2001
Farmers slam State for stealing land March 14, 2001
State grabs second farm for restitution February 19, 2001
Stubborn farmer gets land grabbed February 13, 2001