Man Sets Up Estate On Disputed Land

Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday January 25, 2021 17:43

The land has already been subdivided into a total of 114 plots feared to have been sold to various plot owners where the developer was setting up his own version of Phakalane after buying the ploughing field belonging to a deceased person.

A year after Kago Ntebela, 37, had completed the processes of putting the disputed land under his ownership, the Kgatleng Land Board instituted investigations into the ownership of the 11-hectare land. The Land Board’s investigations would open a can of worms, literally, resulting in the land authority demanding the return of the land as they said it was fraudulently acquired.

The developer has decided to appeal the decision of the Kgatleng Land Board at the Land Tribunal, but it would seem that’s the route the Kgatleng Land Board is itching for; in their prayers, they are calling for the Land Tribunal to refer Ntebela’s matter to the institutions of government for a criminal investigation of possible fraud, corruption, abuse of office and related offences, over and above hitting him with punitive costs as he had proven to be a non-repentant and determined liar.

During their investigations, the Kgatleng Land Board unearthed that several things did not add up in the processes pursued by Ntebela to acquire the disputed 11-hectare land, which he ultimately turned into private property. Among others the Kgatleng Land Board noticed that a letter purportedly addressed to them by Kago Ntebela, as an application for change of land use and transfer of land from its heirs to him, never actually reached the Kgatleng Land Board, but was curiously received and actioned upon by a sub-Land Board, the Oodi Sub Land Board, raising questions as to how a letter supposedly addressed to Kgatleng Land Board, which is based in Mochudi, would land at a sub-Land Board in Oodi when it was not addressed to them.

More curiosity; while Ntebela’s letter to the Kgatleng Land Board is dated August 29, 2019, a letter from the Oodi Sub Land Board, purporting to respond to the same application indicated that the Oodi Sub Land Board met two days before Kago’s letter was written, on the 27th, to consider his application for change of land use.

Even so, it was found that the said letter had no Oodi Sub Land Board stamp or evidence of acknowledgement at the Oodi Sub Land Board. A similar pattern was observed when the District Physical Planning Committee approved the sketch plan for the plot on October 8, 2019, while the same sketch plan was submitted on November 9, 2019, meaning that it was approved a month before it actually reached the Physical Planning Committee.

It was also found that Ntebela’s sketch plan for the plot was dubious. There was no evidence that it had been sent to the Oodi Sub Land Board as it was not stamped and had no details showing the location, sub-Land Board stamp, lot number or the name of the person who prepared it, nor did it have any details of the lessee. It was also found that while Ntebela’s initial application for change of use alleges that the plot in question is 10 hectares, his sketch plan, on the other hand, puts the size of the plot to 111,155 square metres, or 11 hectares.

Ntebela’s transfer form was also found to have no plot details such as plot size, location, present use, lease duration, sketch plan portions, while the part dealing with official use only, was not completed at all, which according to the Kgatleng Land Board is critical in terms of details relating to the date of the site visit, plot measurements, development status, file reference, etc.

When the case was heard at the Land Tribunal court on Friday, Ntebela's lawyer Lediretse P.P, absolved her client from any errors found in the official documents sent to the Oodi Sub Land Board or received by the client from the sub-Land Board, arguing that it was upon the land authority to advise her client how to fill the forms, further saying any errors from the land authority should not be blamed on her client or be used against him at all.

Attorney Lediretse also defended her client’s decision to send his application for change of use to Oodi, arguing that according to her reading of the functions of the Oodi sub-Land Board, as it relates to the main Land Board, the Kgatleng Land Board, the former is an agent of the latter and therefore the decision of their agent was legally binding to them and that they cannot turn around and divorce themselves from their agent’s decisions.

She also pleaded with the Tribunal to have mercy on the developer as he had taken bank loans to erect 10 houses at the site, which remain unoccupied while contractors also remain unpaid as a result of the ongoing dispute. However, the Kgatleng Land Board attorney, Dutch Leburu, said the main Land Board and the sub-Land Board were established by statutes, with the sub-Land Board’s powers in their jurisdictions clearly defined by the law, adding that application for change of land use is determined exclusively by the main Land Board and that where a sub-Land Board is found to be flouting regulations the main Land Board is mandated to act and not wait for complaints.

The Kgatleng Land Board attorney further said the fact that records show two conflicting measurements of the same plot indicate that the sub-Land Board never visited the site to ascertain for themselves the site measurements and its location. The attorney further said the establishment of a new settlement of the size of Ntebela's which would hold 400 or more people required an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report to address the various challenges of the settlement like how much water, electricity, schools, healthcare facilities would be required and how they would be provided, adding that it was unfathomable that such developments would be approved without the EIA.

For their part, the Kgatleng District Council, which approved the sketch plan, admitted at the Tribunal that mistakes were made and that they would abide by the decision of the court in the matter.