The owner of the first South African commercial farm to be earmarked for expropriation said on Thursday he intends contesting the move.
”I do not recognise the [restitution] claim on my land and cannot be forced to sell at the government’s price,” farmer Hannes Visser said.
The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights announced in Pretoria that an expropriation notice will be served on Visser without fail.
Visser owns the 500ha farm Leeuwspruit in the Lichtenberg district of the North West province.
The planned expropriation follows two-and-a-half years of inconclusive negotiations on the value of the property, with Visser wanting R3-million and the government offering R1,75-million, provincial land-claims commissioner Blessing Mphela told reporters.
Visser said he has yet to receive official notice of the move, but has obtained legal advice.
He disputed the validity of the restitution claim, saying the original owners signed letters of purchase in 1942 and sold the land at market-related prices.
According to Mphela, initial owners Abram, Johannes, Thomas, Andreas and Joseph Molamu were dispossessed of the land through forced sale transactions under the apartheid government’s racial policies.
But Visser said the move was about self-enrichment.
”They [the claimants] have no intention of returning the money they received for the property. They want the land and to keep the money.”
Visser said he has made improvements to the value of R3,5-million since he started farming on the land in 1994.
The farm was bought by his father, Frans, in 1968, and has been in the family ever since.
”Should the courts turn out to be my final recourse, I will go that route,” Visser said.
Mphela said expropriation is the last resort.
Once he receives the expropriation notice, Visser will have 30 days to show cause to the minister of agriculture and land affairs why it should not be executed.
Should he fail in that, no recourse remains apart from a possible high-court application, Mphela said.
The land is to be returned to the descendants of the original owners of the Leeuwspruit group of farms in terms of a claim lodged by M Molamu and J Moropa.
Three of the properties have been bought back by the government to date, and one already transferred to the beneficiaries — who intend to farm the land.
Mphela said Visser, who owns the fourth, outstanding property in the group, initially wanted R6-million for the land. The government’s R1,75-million offer is based on the assessment of an independent valuer, and is the amount the seller could expect to receive in the open market.
”The argument raised by the current owners is that they will not be in a position to rebuild the same kind of business they are running on the premises with the amount suggested by the valuer.”
A proposal was made that the developed area of the property, which includes the main house and an abattoir, be excised from the deal and an adjustment made to the purchase price. This area comprised about 42ha.
The claimants rejected the compromise, Mphela said, adding that the commission did not pursue the point as the beneficiaries would have a strong case in court.
The value of the abattoir — the main point of contention — was factored into the offer price at replacement cost minus depreciation, he said.
”Having gone through a long, tedious process, [a] submission to the minister was made with a clear intention to expropriate the farm,” Mphela said.
Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza approved the commencement of expropriation about a week ago.
Mphela underlined the need to fast-track South Africa’s land-reform process.
”If land reform is not handled in a manner that will generate positive economic benefits to our people, then chaos becomes the substitute.”
He criticised some land owners for hindering the process and displaying attitudes ”reminiscent to that of the previous white apartheid government”.
”In South Africa, where dispossession of African people was much more brutal and thorough than any other in the region, the fruits of liberation have yet to be tasted by the majority of the rural population.
”Two-thirds of the country, including most of the best-quality land, remains in the hands of less than 60 000 people who, unfortunately in this case, are white farmers, while 14-million blacks or Africans eke out a precarious existence in the former homelands and urban informal settlements.”
Mphela could not say if further expropriations are in the pipeline, but did not foresee this becoming the norm for land acquisition in the country. — Sapa