Chief land-claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya says he believes that all 22 447 unresolved land-restitution claims will be settled by the end of this year.
”We are confident,” he said on Monday in Cape Town, where he and provincial commissioners are holding their regular quarterly meeting.
”We have increased our staff capacity to ensure that each claim is prioritised. We are confident that we are doing everything possible.”
He said the remaining 13 247 urban claims will be settled by the end of March, leaving 9 200 rural claims.
The commission’s term of office expires in March next year, and Gwanya said it will have to finish its business — including a completion report — by then.
”We don’t have a job [after that date],” he said. ”But we have been committed to this process for some time and we would like to see it to the finish.”
So far, the commission has processed 57 247 claims, involving just more than 26 000 households and 160 000 beneficiaries, which have cost the government more than R4,4-billion.
Most of these — 15 954 — have been in the Eastern Cape, followed by Gauteng with 11 945 and KwaZulu-Natal with 10 554.
Gwanya said urban claims, the bulk of which occur in Gauteng and the Western Cape, are relatively simple to deal with because they are easier to research and secure documentation for.
”We find rural claims very challenging, very difficult to process,” he said.
Rural claims are complicated by the high cost of land, which has to be paid out on a formula based on market value, the need for sometimes-protracted negotiations with land owners and claimants, and resolving disputes within claimant communities themselves.
Particularly problematic claims are not being simply pushed to the back of the queue, as the attention the commission receives from the media and politicians is ”stretching us” to pay attention to these claims, Gwanya said. — Sapa