The Kgatleng Land Board's Report on the Legitimacy of Land Occupancy at Bodungwane, completed on April 15, 2026, offers the most detailed official account yet of the disputed settlement. It also exposes major differences over how many people live there. Statistics Botswana counted 62 residents in the 2022 population and housing census. The Land Board's profiling exercise counted 162, while the current High Court case has 168 individual applicants. Residents had earlier told Mmegi that nearly 300 people regarded Bodungwane as their home. The figures do not necessarily measure the same group. The Land Board says its total included children who spend most of the year at boarding schools and return to Bodungwane during school holidays.
Its investigators identified 41 homesteads or residential plots, but managed to count the populations of only 28 households. The average household size amongst those counted was six, with households ranging from one to 13 people. The report says the majority of the population was aged 18 or younger. The profiling exercise was ordered by the High Court in April 2023 after an earlier order declared people living at Bodungwane without Land Board certificates illegal occupiers or squatters. The Board was given five months, but completed the report almost three years later. Its team reviewed court orders, Land Board allocation records, a 2010 interdepartmental government study and residents' identity and land documents. Officials also inspected homes, administered household questionnaires and interviewed occupants during a visit in December 2025. The report places Bodungwane about 22 kilometres south of Kgomodiatshaba, 29 kilometres north-west of Artesia, nearly 32 kilometres north of Dikgonnye and 14 kilometres north-east of Kweneng. It remains an ungazetted settlement with no approved layout or formal planning framework. The Kgatleng District Integrated Land Use Plan places it in an extensive rangeland zone intended mainly for communal grazing and livestock farming. According to the report, legitimate Land Board allocations in the area are for agricultural use.
