The Ba Gashai tribe, part of the bigger Ba-Phalaborwa people, may keep a valuable private game reserve across seven adjoining farms near Phalaborwa in the Limpopo Province, awarded to them as part of government’s land restitution programme, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday.
Appeal Judge Pierre Olivier, in a unanimous judgment, dismissed with costs an appeal by Gamevest (Pty) Ltd against a Land Claims Court judgment in July last year in favour of the Northern Province and Mpumalanga regional land claims commissioner, the Chief Land Claims commissioner, the Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights, the Ba-Phalaborwa Ba Gamaseke tribe and the Ba Gashai tribe.
Gamevest, which ran the game reserve Croc Ranch on the seven farms, argued that the claims of the two tribes to its land were not valid because a substitution of claims took place after the official closing date for the lodging of claims. It also argued that the claims were defective because there was no proof that the Ba Gashai had been dispossessed of the land because of past racially discriminatory laws or practices.
Olivier said in his judgment the Ba-Phalaborwa people, consisting of five tribes, traced their history to the 16th century, with the Ba Gashai joining the larger tribe during the 18th century.
It was one of the oldest tribes in the old Transvaal and currently has more than 62 000 members. Their land claim, covering 65 farms as well as a portion of the Kruger National Park and the Phalaborwa town and mines, was one of the largest and most complicated claims lodged under the restitution act.
It was alleged that until at least 1913 the Ba-Phalaborwa had undisturbed occupation of the whole of this area but that they were dispossessed without compensation by the then government in terms of the Black Land Act and other discriminatory laws.
The Ba-Phalaborwa alleged that their land was surveyed during 1922 and that the first white farmers settled on the Ba-Phalaborwa land from 1923.
Olivier found no grounds for review of the earlier judgment awarding the land to the Ba Gashai.
Olivier also upheld a special punitive costs order by Judge J Moloto of the Land Claims court against Gamevest.
This was for an unreasonable attitude adopted by Gamevest’s attorney, Jurgens Bekker, and repeated scurrilous attacks in Gamevest’s court papers on lawyers and government officials imputing dishonesty, financial recklessness with taxpayers’ money, collusion, fabrications and falsehoods on their part.
Moloto had found that Bekker conducted himself in a ”reprehensible manner” in the proceedings. – Sapa