The Richtersveld community in the Northern Cape celebrated on Saturday after regaining land taken from them in the 1920s.
Spokesperson for the Department of Public Enterprises Lulu Bam said ten years of court battles saw state-owned diamond mining assets, held by the Alexkor mining company, being granted to the community, as well as R190-million in reparation.
”The minister made certain concessions. The summary of the deed settlement transfers R190-million and that has gone into a trust for the community,” she said.
A ceremony to celebrate the handing over of the mining assets to the impoverished community was held on Saturday and attended by the Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulama Xingwana and Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin.
”Alex Bay is mining town, they have always been provided for by Alexkor and the community is an impoverished one,” said Bam
”It is to be turned into a municipality with water, electricity and services to be provided by government.”
The community had Ostrich and fruit farming operations transferred to them, which were held by the mining company, and they now hold the land mining rights while Alexkor holds the marine mining rights.
Together they will form a joint venture with the community holding a 49% stake and three members on the governing board.
”We have negotiated what the handover would entail: it involves mining assets, compensation and how government could work with the community,” said Bam about the agreement reached in April this year.
The community lodged its claim to the land in 1998, which included compensation for diamonds extracted from it since the 1920s.
The settlement will see the state hand over to the community 194 600ha, including an 84 000ha coastal strip of diamond-bearing land currently being mined by the ailing state-owned Alexkor.
The community had fought a legal battle all the way to the Constitutional Court, assisted by the Legal Resources Centre, the country’s largest public-interest law centre. — Sapa