Talks between the government and land claimants have collapsed after the parties failed to agree on how to deal with concerns about the new land restitution law.
The land claimants, made up of more than 100 communities around the country, say the reopening of land claims through the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act of 2014 will further delay the approximately 20000 outstanding land claims and risk the lodging of competing claims.
President Jacob Zuma signed the amendment bill into law in June last year after Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti tabled it before parliament a year earlier.
The new act reopens land claims, whose initial cut-off date was 1998, until June 2019. It also allows claims to be lodged for land dispossessed before June 1913 when the Natives Land Act was passed by colonial administrators.
The claimants are represented by Land Access Movement of SA, Association for Rural Development, and Nkuzi Development Association together with three communal property associations - Moddervlei, Maluleke and Popela.
They say Zuma's administration, parliament through the National Council of Provinces and provincial legislatures failed to facilitate public involvement during deliberations on the then Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill.
Land Access Movement of SA director Constance Mogale confirmed that the government initially tried to negotiate out of court, but the talks deadlocked and no agreement could be reached.
Mogale told Sowetan that the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights was initially willing to redraft the bill but made a U-turn.
The matter is now scheduled to be heard by the Constitutional Court early next year.
Rural development and land reform director-general Mduduzi Shabane said Zuma and Nkwinti have meaningfully attempted to address the organisations and land claimants' concerns during extensive settlement discussions.
Shabane said the contents of the discussions were privileged. "Regrettably the parties could not reach an agreement," he said.
As a result of the remaining unresolved land claims, it will take 144 years to finalise the expected 397000 land claims, according to the Land Access Movement of SA.
But chief land claims commissioner Nomfundo Gobodo said there was no basis for stating that claims will take 144 years to settle. "Many of the claims that have been lodged may be without substance. In such cases, they will be dismissed."
According to Gobodo, the commission accepts that the re-opening of claims may give rise to conflicting claims as new claimants claim properties that were claimed under old order claims.
"I deny that the rigid ring-fencing of old order claims was the only reasonable way of addressing this problem. I deny that the commission lacks the capacity to manage overlapping claims," she said.
sidimbal@sowetan.co.za
Land claimants and state fail to agree
Talks between the government and land claimants have collapsed after the parties failed to agree on how to deal with concerns about the new land restitution law.
The land claimants, made up of more than 100 communities around the country, say the reopening of land claims through the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act of 2014 will further delay the approximately 20000 outstanding land claims and risk the lodging of competing claims.
President Jacob Zuma signed the amendment bill into law in June last year after Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti tabled it before parliament a year earlier.
The new act reopens land claims, whose initial cut-off date was 1998, until June 2019. It also allows claims to be lodged for land dispossessed before June 1913 when the Natives Land Act was passed by colonial administrators.
The claimants are represented by Land Access Movement of SA, Association for Rural Development, and Nkuzi Development Association together with three communal property associations - Moddervlei, Maluleke and Popela.
They say Zuma's administration, parliament through the National Council of Provinces and provincial legislatures failed to facilitate public involvement during deliberations on the then Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill.
Land Access Movement of SA director Constance Mogale confirmed that the government initially tried to negotiate out of court, but the talks deadlocked and no agreement could be reached.
Mogale told Sowetan that the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights was initially willing to redraft the bill but made a U-turn.
The matter is now scheduled to be heard by the Constitutional Court early next year.
Rural development and land reform director-general Mduduzi Shabane said Zuma and Nkwinti have meaningfully attempted to address the organisations and land claimants' concerns during extensive settlement discussions.
Shabane said the contents of the discussions were privileged. "Regrettably the parties could not reach an agreement," he said.
As a result of the remaining unresolved land claims, it will take 144 years to finalise the expected 397000 land claims, according to the Land Access Movement of SA.
But chief land claims commissioner Nomfundo Gobodo said there was no basis for stating that claims will take 144 years to settle. "Many of the claims that have been lodged may be without substance. In such cases, they will be dismissed."
According to Gobodo, the commission accepts that the re-opening of claims may give rise to conflicting claims as new claimants claim properties that were claimed under old order claims.
"I deny that the rigid ring-fencing of old order claims was the only reasonable way of addressing this problem. I deny that the commission lacks the capacity to manage overlapping claims," she said.
sidimbal@sowetan.co.za
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