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A recent court judgment may just spell the end of a decade of allegations of death threats, intimidation and being ripped off against some beneficiaries of a R1.1 billion land claim.
The North Gauteng High Court has ruled that the beneficiary list of the Tenbosch land claim in Mpumalanga be done afresh and then a general meeting be convened to elect a new board of the Mjejane Trust.
The land claim was supposed to be a triumph for the Lugedlane traditional community when the land – involving 32 000 hectares of sugarcane, sub-tropical fruit and vegetable farms, as well as the Mjejane Nature Reserve on the border of the Kruger National Park near Malalane – was handed back to the communities of Lugedlane, Siboshwa, Hhoyi and Mbambiso in 2007.
The community was dispossessed of the land in 1954 through discriminatory laws and relocated to modern-day Steenbok and Mangweni in Nkomazi local municipality.
However, the handover precipitated a conflict. Most deserving land claimants accused the board of directors of failing to account about the trust’s finances and selling “beneficiary statuses” to people who were not claimants.
The beneficiaries who were left out claimed to have received death threats and being intimidated.
Protests took place against their lawyer, Richard Spoor.
To date, none of the Lugedlane beneficiaries has earned any dividends from the farms, which are leased to commercial farmers, nor have they benefited from the use of their land. But it is estimated that more that R35 million of the trust’s money has not been accounted for.
The biggest problem, according to court documents, began when members of the interim board of trustees – Meshack Silinda, an attorney, Simeone Ngomane (also an attorney) and Lauzarus Zitha – were appointed on May 20 2009 but failed to carry out a court order to appoint philanthropist, Dr At Fischer, to verify the beneficiary list.
Attempts to get comment from Silinda proved futile. He did not return messages left with his office.
Instead of going with Fischer, the trustees appointed Mhlaba Image Productions CC – a company belonging to Silinda’s brother, Tom Silinda – to do the job for R2 million.
The court dismissed the reasons of the interim board gave for not appointing Fischer as “controversial”. The board claimed that Fischer’s earlier work had been disputed by the community.
“The integrity of the process that gave rise to [the Mhlaba] report is seriously compromised as it was vitiated by violence and intimidation,” said Judge Tatu Makgoka in his judgment.
Mhlaba identified a panel of 41 elders. These elders identified and registered 1038 beneficiaries in November 2009 and added 1 539 more after more meetings.
The board then applied for a confirmation of the beneficiaries as described in the Mhlaba report, but the respondents – Zoma Makhubela, David Makhushe, Sibusiso Ndlovu and Dunisa Silabela – were granted leave to oppose it.
The North Gauteng High Court ruled last Friday that the trustees appoint Fischer to determine identities and determine a register of the Mjejane Trust beneficiaries. The court ordered that Fischer should do his job under police protection.
Three months after Fischer finished his job, the trustees were ordered to call a general meeting to report back on administration and finances of the trust and prepare auditing of financial statements and the election of new board members.
Spoor said that the trustees were refusing to account for money generated from the land.
“If attorneys [Silinda and Ngomane] behave like this, what chance is there for land claimant communities. We’ve repeatedly asked and the master of the high court has done so, but they have refused to account for finances of the trust,” Spoor said.
The beneficiaries are afraid to comment in fear of the alleged reprisals.
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