15 Nov 2015

Mogoditshane Sub-land Board deputy chairperson, Mr Mpho Thena has cautioned residents of Metsimotlhabe to be on the alert of some fraudsters who go around claiming to be land board officials.

Speaking in a kgotla meeting at the village recently, Mr Thena said such fraudsters go around obtaining money by false pretenses from the public and even go to the extent of forging land board stickers and placing them on their cars for advertising hence convincing their victims.

He said sometimes the fraudsters would call applicants in the waiting list to inform them that they have missed their land allocation appointments, and requesting them to e-wallet money so that their re-allocation process could be sped up, a process that Mr Thena said requires no payment from applicants.

He also admitted that there were a number of corruption cases that they have registered.

He, however, said that their investigations revealed that not only land board officials were implicated in the matter, but also some members of the public including dikgosana. “Some of you sell plots to foreigners and after that you come to us looking for duplicates claiming the certificates were lost after which you sell the plot again to a different person,” he said.  

For her part, land board member, Ms Baoketsi Keebine advised that they only work from 7:30am to 4pm and that if they encounter anyone outside those hours claiming to be a land board official, they must report them to the land board or the nearest police. Ends