Move against minister in land row

THE Durban Legal Resources Centre, acting on behalf of KwaZuluNatal labour tenants and the Association for Rural Advancement (Afra), wants Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Gugile Nkwinti to be held in contempt of court.

The matter involves a case regarding Hilton College land, brought by four labour tenants who wanted their application for land restitution to be considered.

According to the court papers, in 2013 the tenants launched an application to have their claims processed, but the case also sought to compel the land reform department to process thousands of labour tenant claims that were “languishing in limbo”.

The tenants and Afra said about 19 000 other claims had been stalled for more than a decade.

In terms of section 16 of the Labour Tenants Act, tenants are allowed to apply to the director-general of the land reform department for ownership or other rights to land they and their parents have lived and worked on.

The matter has been in court since then and the association and the labour tenants have asked that a special master be appointed to oversee the processing of the claims.

A special master can be authorised by a judge to make sure a court order is adhered to and to report activities of the body under the court order.

Before the court hearing of the issue of the special master, the parties entered into negotiations which led to a court order being agreed to by all parties. In terms of this, the parties agreed to “negotiate in good faith to conclude a memorandum of understanding” that would address several issues related to labour tenants.

Forum

One of those was the establishment of a national forum of NGOs that would work with the department to deal with labour tenants’ claims.

In an affidavit filed in the contempt-of-court application, Afra manager Glenn Farred said the association had believed that the forum would be an alternative to a special master. He said while the association and the labour tenants had tried to negotiate in good faith, Nkwinti had taken it upon himself to establish a “National Land NGO forum” without negotiating with any of the interested parties.

Farred said Afra had not been invited to participate in the forum and many of the NGOS invited did not work with or represent the interests of labour tenants.

“The minister’s conduct is directly contrary to the court order. He has plainly acted in bad faith.”

The ministry did not respond to questions yesterday.

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