Maele threatens to evict Gabane farmers
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday July 17, 2015 11:37
Addressing a fully-packed Kgotla meeting yesterday, he said that the government has the authority to take their land from them even without their consent.
“I heard that some of you are refusing to hand over their farms to the Land Board authorities. But you need to understand that there is a law that allows us to take the land without your authorisation. We will use those powers to take those farms from you,” said Maele This came after the Village Development Committee (VDC) representative Otlaadisa Manthe said that Mogoditshane Land Board has threatened that if they did not hand in their farms, they would take them to court.
According to Manthe the residents complained about the compensation that the Land Board had promised them.
People attending the meeting also raised concern that instead of getting money as compensation, they needed to be allocated residential plots in return, noting that the money is usually misused as compared to owning a plot.
Maele explained that by obtaining a court order, they will be following the old law, which was formulated a long time ago that people have been ignorant of.
He said that this law has helped in many instances, as some have preferred to just refuse with the land.
Despite the minister assuring participants that he has instructed the Land Board to go and look at the compensation guidelines, he said the government would in the meantime seek a court order to repossess the land.
Maele said that the government’s policy to allocate serviced land is the reason why there are long waiting lists.
“We decided that we should give people plots where there is access to water, electricity, sewage facilities as well as roads because we realised that if we did not take this into consideration, it took people a long time to develop their plots,” he said Further Maele noted that land servicing is expensive, giving an example that they have serviced about 3,500 plots in Palapye at the cost of P300 million.
“I am also concerned about people who get the land illegally, Mogoditshane Land Board has the highest numbers of people who do that, and interestingly these people do not even have evidence to prove that the land belongs to them.”
Another resident Peter Marope accused their Chief of being negligent, saying that they have been waiting for a long time to get land certificates. Marope stated that this (the Chief’s negligence) has had an impact on water connection.