Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform, and Rural Development Thoko Didiza said thousands of land claims have been settled by the land claims commission. Picture: Leon Lestrade/African News Agency (ANA)
The Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform, and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, says the Land Claims Commission has settled more claims than the ones that were lodged during the deadline in 1998.
She said out of the 80,000 claims that were lodged by the deadline of December 1998, they have been able to settle over 83,000 land claims.
She said the government had set a deadline of December 1998 for people to lodge restitution claims.
Since then, they have been able to settle more than 83,000 of the land claims.
Deputy President Paul Mashatile said recently, in a study that was done some time ago, that it would take many years to settle outstanding land claims if the government continued at the same pace.
The delays were due to the fact that some of the landowners were demanding exorbitant money.
However, it was also found that government would need R127 billion to settle existing claims on land.
In a written reply to a parliamentary question from EFF MP Sam Matiase, Didiza said they have been able to settle thousands of claims that were lodged by the end of 1998.
“About 80,000 claims were lodged by December 31, 1998, (and) 83,067; the number of settled claims to date is higher than the number of claims lodged as a result of how claims were accounted for previously; that is where rights in land per claim were counted as opposed to the individual claim form lodged per claim,” said Didiza.
She said the information on the 83,067 claims was obtained from the Land Claims Commission.
These were the claims settled in line with the Restitution of Land Rights Act, said Didiza.
Mashatile is the chairperson of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Land Reform, and he said recently that he will be meeting with a number of stakeholders to address the issue of land.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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