No resting in peace at top KZN rural estate
● When farmworker William Ndlovu died, his only wish was to be buried in the rolling green hillside of the farm on which he’d toiled his entire life.
But now his final resting place — at the heart of what has become a luxury housing and retirement estate — has pitted his family against the upmarket St John’s Estate and its developer, Cenprop.
The family believe that the grave has been desecrated — moved without consultation. If they want to visit the grave they have to get permission and be escorted.
“The grave is nothing of what it used to be and it is not where it originally lay. It was a cairn of stones marking the place where my grandfather was buried, now they have poured concrete over it,” William’s grandson Siya Ndlovu said. “We didn’t do this. What we want to know is who did it and with whose permission? We were certainly never consulted.”
For more than a decade, Ndlovu said, his family had grappled with developers and the managers of the estate in an attempt to safeguard the ancestral burial site and maintain the dignity of his grandfather.
“My family has a relationship with this land and when the farm was sold in 2007 — before the development even started — my family went to these people because we were concerned about what would happen with the graves,” he said.
Now all that remains of William Ndlovu’s grave is a concrete slab with his name and age at death scrawled on it.
The St John’s farm, once a dairy farm and one of the pillars of the town of Howick, is now home to a sprawling gated community.
Developer Cenprop has driven high-end projects across SA, including Simbithi and Lazuli on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast.
“My grandfather was attached to this land,” Ndlovu said. “The farmer here knew our family and he knows us. We have newspaper articles which recognised my grandfather’s contribution to the farm and detailing how he had been there since 1900.”
Ndlovu said that despite their appeals to the estate and the developer, they had been shut out.
“We started this process years ago and as time has passed these people have refused to recognise us. They want to keep us out. If we want to visit the grave we need to write to their attorneys, and then if they allow us we can come onto the estate with a security escort, like thieves.”
They had, in desperation, taken their complaint to the department of land affairs, which appointed lawyers on their behalf.
An attorney wrote to lawyers for the estate in September, demanding they give the Ndlovu family access to the grave and hand over an archaeological report to verify the existence of the burial site.
“Until now we are still shut out as if we are not human,” Ndlovu said.
George Hyslop, speaking on behalf of the farm’s former owner — his father William — told the Sunday Times that their family had made the developers aware of the presence of graves on the farm.
“They obviously then did their own environmental impact assessment which would have shown the presence of graves,” he said. “We obviously also acknowledge the importance of the ancestors and graves.”
Cenprop MD Glenn Hesse, via attorney Doc Louw, denied that they were aware of the graves but said efforts were under way “to find a solution acceptable to all parties”.
“Our client did receive warranties from the previous owners that there were no burial sites on the properties at the time they were acquired by our client,” Louw said.
“A heritage impact assessment was carried out prior to approval and commencement of the development, which did not refer to any grave sites which would be affected by the proposed development.”
We are still shut out as if we are not human Siya Ndlovu William Ndlovu’s grandson