Victory for people who reside on traditional land
THE court ruling against the Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB) that the lease agreement between it and the residents was unlawful and invalid, is a victory for people who reside on traditional land.
In a landmark ruling, the high court in Pietermaritzburg ordered the ITB to pay back millions of rand it has collected from residents since 2012. The court has also given Land Reform Minister Thoko Didiza, under whose department the ITB falls, three months to rectify the situation, through which thousands of residents on ITB land in rural KwaZulu-Natal have been forced to pay leases.
The ITB administers around 3 million hectares of KwaZulu-Natal on behalf of the Zulu monarch, and in 2012 a controversial decision was taken to introduce the residential lease programme to replace the permission to occupy certificates that residents had been familiar with.
In essence, the court’s pronouncement is an attempt to rectify the wrongs committed by the ITB when residents were ordered to pay R800 or more in lease fees annually. People living on traditional land are the custodians of the land, and therefore should not be subjected to paying for their own land.
We would challenge the ITB, which so far has not commented or reacted to the court ruling, to do the right thing and facilitate the return of the R90 million in lease fees it collected in the 2018/19 financial year. This has to be done as a matter of urgency to give effect to the ruling.
Didiza’s department should learn a hard lesson due to how it handled the matter between the ITB and the residents.
In their ruling, judges agreed that Didiza “breached her duties”, adding that she must reinstate the policy and report back to the court every three months on progress. We hope the court will motivate the department to finally act in the interest of the rural residents by ensuring that they eventually become owners of their ancestral land.
In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. Albert Einstein
ALBERT EINSTEIN German-born theoretical physicist