Occupation provision racist, says trust
THE INGONYAMA Trust board has described the”permission to occupy (PTO) land” right as a racist system that was created by the apartheid regime.
Although they have denied any intention to do away with PTOs on land owned by the trust, the board’s chairperson, Jerome Ngwenya, and its chief executive, Bonginkosi Lucas Mkhwanazi, said PTOs were part of a racist system that did not benefit land occupants.
King Goodwill Zwelithini is the sole trustee of the Ingonyama Trust, and the custodian of about 2.8 million hectares of rural land in KwaZulu-Natal.
The board last week filed an affidavit in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in response to an application by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) on behalf of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac), the Rural Women’s Movement and seven informal land rights holders who challenged the conversion of informal land rights to long-term lease agreements.
Ngwenya, in the affidavit, described PTOs as racist tenure instruments, which were meant to prevent black people from advancing economically.
“This is so because a PTO is not registrable in the Deeds Office like a title deed or lease.
“That the new democratic order did not notice that it was perpetuating an apartheid system by condoning this instrument escapes logic,” said Ngwenya.
He also fired a salvo at Casac executive secretary Lawson Naidoo and the LRC for taking Ingonyama to court.
“It should be obvious from some of the attachments to his application that the Legal Resources Centre has been threatening Ingonyama Trust with court action for some time when it had no client to represent except itself,” read Ngwenya’s affidavit.
Casac and the LRC alleged that by converting the current land rights into lease agreements, Ingonyama was undermining the right of tenure, which would lead to land occupants being forced to pay rent.
“Should they fail to pay, they risk losing their right to the land they currently occupy and use;
“They may not build without the permission of the Ingonyama Trust.
“If they vacate the premises, all buildings and structures erected on the land will belong to the Ingonyama Trust,” said Casac and the LRC.
However, Mkhwanazi said the lease would provide Ingonyama land occupants with “more security and reinforce, rather than undermine customary law rights”. “Land administration rights are granted to the minister and the MEC under Act 11 of 1992,” read Mkhwanazi’s affidavit.
The LRC’s Thabiso Mbhense, who is the lawyer in the matter against Ingonyama, said Casac intervened after realising that the rights of people who occupied the land were being violated.
“We have many clients, others brought in their documents later and therefore we could not include all of them in the application.
“This is a class action matter, and our clients are litigating on behalf of many people who signed lease agreements,” said Mbhense.