The Khomani San still live in squalor four years after they were granted land in the remote Kalahari that consultants say could make the small band one of the richest communities in South Africa.
The Khomani won a land claim in 1999 that gave them six farms totalling 36 000ha near the Kgalagadi National Park.
Shortly before the World Summit on Sustainable Development last year the community received another land claim of 25 000ha of the neighbouring Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza attended the ceremony and hailed the project as an example of how a community can reclaim its heritage.
Since then their dreams of emerging from bitter poverty have turned as dusty as the dry Kalahari dunes on which they live.
“Our farms are going from bad to worse and there is nothing we can do because we do not have the money,” says Jan van der Westhuizen, chair-person of the newly elected executive committee of the Communal Property Association (CPA).
The committee was elected in April after the previous two committees were dismissed because of mismanagement and corruption. The government must still recognise the new committee before it can take control.
Phillipa Holden, an ecologist working with the Khomani San, says it is incomprehensible that the government would hand over property worth millions of rands to a community, but fail to ensure they have the support and training to run the farms.
“The Khomani San lived in grass houses alongside the road before the land claim. They do not have the expertise to farm,” she says.
“For four years absolutely nothing has happened on these six farms,” says Van der Westhuizen. “The farms are not generating an income. There is no water to farm with. There is no money to buy diesel. We live off the pensions of the elderly.”
Each family is allocated only a litre of water a day. Water and electricity to the farms were cut off in September after the community failed to pay for the services.
“It is atrocious,” says a development consultant who works closely with the community. “They are the richest community in South Africa, yet they do not even have money for food.”
Sugar Ramakarane, commissioner of land affairs in the Free State and Northern Cape, has been handling the Khomani San’s land claim. He says the government knows about the community’s problems, “but the point of land redistribution is to give a community their land, not run it for them”.
“Yet we know that intervention is needed at the Khomani San’s farms. A new leadership was elected in April and we are hopeful that this time they have got it right. But before we can give them a mandate to start governing and release the trust fund’s interest, we have to see the old financial statements and, more importantly, they have to present a workable business plan to us.”
The community has a trust fund worth R2,7-million, but cannot touch the money without a mandate from the government. The government established the fund to buy more land for the Khomani San.
Ramakarane says interest from the fund may be used for the administration of the farms, such as paying for electricity, water and diesel. “But the old executive committee used the funds for their own personal expenses. The Khomani San have to be more accountable for their own fate.”
A court last year ordered the government to appoint a manager for the enterprise. “But nothing has happened,” Holden says. “Someone is needed to help the community get on their feet and train them to be self-sustainable. We write letters, send hundreds of e-mails, make numerous calls. Up to now we have only gotten one letter back from an official at [the Department of Agriculture and] Land Affairs, saying they will look into it.”
Ramakarane says the government is “setting up a service provider to assist the Khomani San in the day-to-day running of the farms. We are also looking at establishing a partnership between government, the community and business people. But in the end it is not an ideal situation for us to give people land but then run it ourselves.”
Last week Van der Westhuizen and members of the CPA again tried to engage the provincial government at a meeting with the community at Van Zylsrus, the main town in the area. They were told the appropriate people to handle their problem were not there.
“Who are the appropriate people?” asks Van der Westhuizen. “Every single MEC of the Northern Cape was there, yet they again just shifted the problem to someone else.”
David Rooi, provincial minister of agriculture, land and environmental affairs, later told Van der Westhuizen that he would investigate the community’s problems.
Van der Westhuizen says the community has become used to being ignored. He says officials use the community’s lack of management skills to aid poachers and others who exploit their property.
“We catch the poachers red-handed, but the police will let them go. They claim the poachers have permission to hunt. But David Kruiper, our traditional leader, never gave anyone permission. They tell us they hunt meat for funerals, but if we have a funeral and we want to hunt we are denied permission from the parks board.”
The development consultant says only 12 gemsbok and 60 springbok are left on one farm that once held game worth millions of rands. “They have stripped the community of their riches.”
Kruiper does not trust the police who raid the community for dagga, which he says is used as part of San culture.
“The police are supposed to protect you, but now they are the enemy. Alcohol is a much bigger enemy of our people. Yet they open liquor stores at every corner. We need someone to help our people with this problem.”
Van der Westhuizen, an unemployed trained health-care worker, agrees that the community needs a social worker. “Not a day goes by that I’m not called out to mend injuries picked up in an alcohol-related fight.”
He is also suspicious of the local police. “Not long ago a drunken man killed a woman, but no one has been prosecuted though they know exactly who the perpetrator is. Why is that?”
The Khomani San plan to build a luxury river lodge on their land in the Kgalagadi park and have found a backer for the project.
“But that will only happen in September at the earliest. Until then we have to get the farms going and become self-sufficient,” Van der Westhuizen says.