Land claimants in the Eastern Cape have lambasted the Land Reform and Restitution Department’s officials for failing to properly administer the payment of land claims.
The claimants were addressing their grievances in a Land Imbizo led by Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso in Stutterheim yesterday.
They say the decades of delays in land claim payouts result in principal claimants passing away.
One claimant says, “The department is not giving us post settlement, it’s supposed to, it gave us post settlement in 2022 so that we can work the land. We have an agreement to organise the feedlot so that we can make the feedlot thing work but the department failed us.”
Another claimant says, “The manner in which they apply the law if flawed. If government says in the land claim there should be a title deed and homestead identification, why do they start with making payments before doing homestead identification and title deed verification? That is where the problem is.”
Nyhontso expressed disappointment on the delays in post settlement support for title deed beneficiaries.
He says, “I’m very angry at officials about that because we can’t give black people land without money and there is a mechanism to do that. The mistake with our officials is that we give people land and then we don’t support, and when they fail the land we accuse them and say they cannot work that land.”
VIDEO | Nyhontso on land claims in EC:
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