Amendments to bill will address farm evictions

Revised law will give a voice to farmworkers, help regulate disputes

PRETORIA: Illegal evictions previously faced by farmworkers will be a thing of the past when Parliament finalises the Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill.

The bill will also protect the rights of dwellers to visit, maintain or erect a tombstone on or mark, place symbols or perform rites on family graves on land belonging to another person.

The amendment process was set in motion in September last year when the bill was tabled in Parliament.

Last night, the portfolio committee on rural development and land reform held public hearings into the bill in Bronkhorstspruit.

Similar hearings are being held across the country, targeting farming communities as well as hot spots for evictions.

The bill is aimed at addressing gaps in the existing legislation by strengthening ways to regulate evictions and handle disputes between land occupiers and owners.

Malatswa Molepo, spokesperson for the portfolio committee, said the purpose of the meetings was to allow the public to make inputs into the bill in line with the law.

The current legislation was replete with weaknesses and limitations in its broad definition of occupier of land and residence on a farm.

The revised bill sought to clarify what was actually meant by occupier and residence, Molepo said.

The legislation also failed to specify institutions authorised to handle disputes between the occupiers and landowners.

To rectify the situation, the bill proposed the establishment of a land rights management committee tasked with identifying and monitoring land rights disputes.

It will also observe, through adequate participation of all actors, whose relative rights were concerned.

Molepo said the farmworkers would have representatives in the committee to give them a voice.

The land rights management board will be established to intervene in the event that a dispute cannot be resolved between the landowners and land occupiers by the committee.

Molepo said current legislation stipulated that the land occupiers ought to be notified prior to the eviction.

But that was never complied with, he said.

Most land occupiers still faced insecurity and other forms of land rights violations, including evictions, from their homes.