Khoisan recognition is the goal of their people
SEVERAL contentious points and discrepancies contained in the Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Bill will be overlooked for the sake of inching closer to recognition.
This was the view expressed by the regional representative of the National Khoisan Council, Chantal Bruckner, in response to nationwide public hearings on the bill.
The portfolio committee on co-operative governance and traditional affairs embarked on the hearings and Parliament’s Old Assembly Chamber was the venue, which moved to Swellendam on Friday and Oudtshoorn on Saturday.
The bill provides for, among others, the statutory recognition of the legitimate Khoisan leadership and communities.
It also provides for the integration of recognised Khoisan leaders into existing houses of traditional leadership and doing away with separate structures for the Khoisan.
Bruckner said the council was unhappy about the term “Khoisan”, which has been coined as a person who lives in accordance with the customs and customary law of the Cape-Khoi, Griqua, Nama, Koranna or San people, or any sub-grouping thereof.
She said different clans had different customs and to clump it all together was unfair.
That the government had also refused to give Khoisan people First People status was wrong, she said.
“We raised our views with the government for the last 17 years and hardly anything was considered. But we have wanted the bill to go through Parliament for a long time, so we will participate and co-operate.”
The bill seeks to provide for the recognition of traditional and Khoisan communities; provide for the functions and roles of traditional and Khoisan leaders; provide for the recognition, establishment, functions, roles and administration of kingship or queenship councils; and to provide for the establishment, composition and functioning of the National House of Traditional and Khoisan Leaders.
The committee will conclude this year’s programme with hearings in the Eastern Cape, East London and Graaff Reinet.