Finally, an amicable solution has been found to resolve a long-standing conflict between people who purchased and developed highly contested land in Oodi and Mogoditshane and the two area landboards after a legal hiccup that nearly bankrupted the landowners.
The Ministry of Lands, Sanitation and Water Resources has opted for an out of court settlement offer in the respective areas to bring to an end a three-year dispute that led to litigation and job losses.
The ministry and Kweneng landboard have engaged Monthe Marumo Attorneys to help them find a common ground, after the law firm successfully resolved a similar matter in Oodi village.
In Oodi, the sub landboard had given developers permission to demarcate and erect developments on their fields in compliance with development plans.
It turned out that the arrangement was unlawful since only the Main Landboard had powers to acquire, compensate owners and demarcate land for allocation.
After the affected developers successfully challenged the Oodi Sub Landboard at the Land Tribunal and High Court, the ministry owned up to the mistakes of the Oodi Sub landboard and proposed a model that will fairly benefit both parties.
The parties agreed to a certain ratio of sharing the fields/masimo (20 in number) that included the owner keeping a certain percentage of the tshimo, shedding a large chunk to the Landboard and the deal produced an estimated 2000 plots that were immediately allocated other citizens early this year.
Meanwhile in Mogoditshane, which was a totally different system of land acquisition, investigations have revealed that some officers at Mogoditshane sub landboard exploited loopholes in the system and went on a land grabbing mission resulting in 40 officers owning a total of 800 plots.
This was after the Kweneng main Landboard gave them a green light to implement the compensation in kind model which proposed that a field owner gets six plots from one hectare they gave to the KMLB.
The officers allegedly embarked on an unlawful operation that involved acquiring fields/masimo for themselves, subdividing such masimo into small masimo and allocating those masimo to friends and relatives, then selling to the public.
A five-hectare tshimo would produce 30 plots for sale. The network reportedly involved officials from land registration, transfer of land, and issuance of land tittle/certificate.
All these transactions were done without the approval of the main landboard.
An attorney at Monthe Marumo Lawfirm Phenyo Sekape, confirmed that they are handling court matters where some officers are challenging their dismissal from MSLB for their involvement in the land scam, and that indeed there was a lot of land theft that occurred in Mogoditshane and surrounding areas.
“We are finalising the processes on how to work with Kweneng Main Landboard. In Oodi it was a 70/30 ratio on a case-by-case scenario. The Oodi matters have almost been resolved at about 80% completed,” he said.
Sekape further explained that those who were genuinely cheated by the MSLB have already been identified and are likely to be spared the punishment whilst those who knowingly purchased plots from stolen land will face the wrath of the law.
How 40 Employees acquired a total of 800 plots
• Kweneng Main Landboard approves Compensation in Kind of six plots per field/tshimo, per hectare, and instructs MSLB to implement.
• MSLB seemingly misunderstands the KMLB instruction and assumes the role of acquisition and compensation reserved for Main Landboard.
• Officers go out on a land grabbing mission of masimo anywhere under MSLB jurisdiction.
• Individual officers pay masimo owners, present applications for subdivision to their colleagues who immediately approve such.
• Officer allocates one hectare to family members, friends, associates and MSLB approves and issues certificates to allow them to sell the plots to the public.
• Investigations reveal that around 40 officers acquired 800 plots for themselves whilst the waiting list for land applications rose to over 250 000.
*See an opinion piece by GILBERT SESINYI on the land conflict
