Gov’t, Balete land war heats up again
Mpho Mokwape | Wednesday September 28, 2022 15:39
The pair is having yet another round at the courts as the State wants the highest court to decide once and for all to whom the contested farmland belongs. In May last year, Kgosi Mosadi Seboko led Balete to victory when the High Court declared the farmland belonged to the tribe while government, on one hand, does not think so.
The government has for a long time been engaged in a bitter war with the tribe over the farmland known as Hill 9-KO. It was an unending war when it informed the tribe that it was time for the cessation of the tribe’s ownership of the farms by cancelling its Title Deed. In their recently filed court papers at the Court of Appeal (CoA), the government still insists the farm belongs to Malete Land Board, therefore, being a government property. Government says the trial court was wrong in finding that the land in terms of the Deed of Transfer was not included in the Bamalete Tribal Territory. “The High Court was wrong to decide that the farmland was not included in the Bamalete territory therefore the Land Board cannot claim ownership and that it solely belongs to the tribe,” the State argued.
The Malete Land Board, being the one seeking to take the land from the tribe, argues that the farm does not belong to the Balete tribe. Its case is that the High Court erred in finding that their acquisition of the contested farm was unconstitutional because it was done with the consent of the tribe by their own admission in a previous court case relating to the same issue. According to the Land Board, subsequent to the introduction of the Land Boards, the tribe was the one that made a request for the State to manage its various farms.
“The land was incorporated into the Bamalete Tribal Territory at the request of the tribe, we did not just grab it without their consent,” stated the Land Board. In that instance they want the CoA bench to declare that the land belongs to them and direct Kgosi Mosadi Seboko of Balete to hand over the Title Deed. Meanwhile, Balete vowed to fight until the end saying there is no way they will willingly hand over their land to government. In their papers, they insist that the land has always belonged to the tribe as they bought it with their own money without the help of government.
“The farm has always been ours. It has been the tribe’s freehold property, there is no way the government can now claim its ownership,” stated the tribe. The parties will meet again on October 11.