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Govt takes Limpopo farm
22/01/2008 11:04 - (SA)
Sydney Masinga and Sharon Hammond
Hoedspruit - The government will officially take possession of a Limpopo citrus farm on Thursday after it was expropriated by agriculture and land affairs minister Lulu Xingwana.
The farm, Callais 226KT in Hoedspruit, will be placed under caretaker management before being transferred to the Letebele, Mpuru and Maraba communities who won a claim on the land.
The farm was expropriated after being liquidated. The liquidators, Sechaba Trust, had refused to reduce its asking price of R19m to government's offer of R13m.
"We are going ahead with the expropriation process in all instances where we feel that land owners are just giving us the run around," said acting chief land claims commissioner, Tumi Seboka.
2nd expropriation
The state has already paid R10,6m of the R13m into Sechaba Trust's account for the land.
The Limpopo farm is the second property to be expropriated by the state. The first was a Northern Cape farm that was expropriated last year.
"We have a number of other cases where we are ready to serve notice of possible expropriation if we feel landowners are delaying the land reform process unnecessarily," Seboka added.
The Callais farm will be placed under the interim management of a company called Strategic Farm Management, which will manage the citrus orchards on a 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement with the community.
The company will be responsible for ensuring that farms remains viable for future joint venture possibilities.
The Letebele, Mpuru and Maraba communities comprise 310 households of about 1 860 beneficiaries who will continue with the citrus farming activities on the land. They were dispossessed of their rights to the land in 1965.
Dries Joubert, chairperson of the northern branch of the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU-SA North), has accused the provincial land claims commission of delaying the restitution process at Callais farm.
He said the farmer who previously owned the farm had been willing to sell the farm as far back as 1998 for R12m, but that the provincial land claims commission had delayed negotiations until 2005.
Joubert said the land claim was only formally gazetted in 2000 and that the land claims commission only made an offer to buy it five years later, in 2005.
"During all those years, the debts were piling up against the farm, until it was liquidated in 2006," he said.
In terms of the Restitution of the Land Rights Act, the agriculture and land affairs minister has the authority to expropriate land for restitution purposes if they are convinced that the process is being delayed without good reason.
- African Eye
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