It was a case of David meeting Goliath at the Land Claims Court in Cape Town’s High Court this week. The court sat to ratify a settlement agreement signed between the Richtersveld community and the government, one which Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin has called a breakthrough.
But a group that differed, called the Richtersveld Action Committee, was also in court and asked to enter proceedings. With three legal representatives (balanced against the state’s 13-strong team), they won.
Judge Antonie Geldenhuys ruled in favour of the action committee meaning the deal will have to win their approval before it goes ahead. They were ‘over the moonâ€, said representatives.
The original deal was signed in great secrecy in April this year with Erwin and a small group of Richtersveld community leaders representing the Richtersveld Sida !hub Communal Property Association (CPA).
After more than a decade of government, and specifically Erwin, fighting the community and spending more than R50-million in legal fees opposing its land claim, it was quite a change of heart at court.
The community members who signed the deal and the government joined sides this week to convince the judge, as well as the Richtersveld Action Committee, that the settlement agreement was indeed ‘the very best†for the tiny, impoverished Northern Cape community.
But the action committee says the agreement deviates substantially from a memorandum of understanding signed between the community and government in October last year and makes it a minority shareholder in land the Constitutional Court granted to it.
After the settlement agreement was signed with four community leaders in April during a weekend of one-on-one meetings with Erwin, at which the action committee faction was not represented, the CPA’s lawyers, the Legal Resources Centre, withdrew as representatives.
At the meeting Erwin allegedly gave community leaders tickets to watch a rugby match at Loftus ÂVersveld in Pretoria.
In one of the biggest land claims yet the state will pay close to R300-million to the community in a variety of trusts and agreements.
The state’s senior advocate, Gerrit Grobler, took more than a day to explain why the settlement agreement was in the best interests of the community.
The deal proposes: the return of about 84 000ha of land to the community; a R190-million ‘extraordinary reparation†payment; and the creation of a joint mining venture with the financially bankrupt diamond mining parastatal, Alexkor.
But the action committee’s legal team disagreed, saying the community’s main concern was the rehabilitation of its land and the status of Alexkor.
Alexkor is in deep financial trouble and the signed agreement gives more weight to protecting its interests than to the restoration of the community’s land rights.
‘According to the agreement Alexkor has a lot of responsibilities and government will not underwrite them — we know that Alexkor is in trouble and that worries us,†said action committee spokesperson Emily Smith.
Willem Diergaardt, spokesperson for the CPA and one of the signatories of the agreement with the government, said: ‘Finally government is the one to give us our bread. This is our government and we fought each other, but that fight is now over. We believe that the Richtersveld Action Committee will see our point of view and I hope it will not take too long.â€
The next court date is set for early in October.