23 Jul 2013

Tlokweng Land Board has appealed the Land Tribunal’s ruling to remit the case in which 17 people appealed unfair land allocation.  

On March 19, the tribunal’s three members, Mr Gordon Lecoge, its president, Mrs Boitumelo Kaisara and Mr Kebalepile Rutherford unanimously agreed and ordered that the Batlokwa land case be remitted to the Tlokweng Land Board for re-consideration.

Seventeen appellants had approached the court to challenge the Tlokweng Land Board’s decision in respect of the allocation claiming they had a legitimate expectation to the allocation as they had been interviewed.

They had also approached the court for a temporary suspension of the physical allocation of the 285 plots by the land board. The Land Tribunal ruled in their favour in all the matters.

At some point, the board resolved to suspend the allocation of residential plots that it had initially allocated to 285 successful applicants, but later uplifted the suspension and tried to go ahead with the allocation.

Tlokweng Land Board's public relations officer, Mr Augustine Sepoe confirmed the decision to appeal, adding that the matter was now before the High Court. He said the decision to appeal the ruling was resolved during the land board sitting that was held on April 22, adding the matter was filed with the High Court on May 10.

He said the board felt that it should appeal the ruling on a point of law because the matter was not properly before the Land Tribunal as no decision was ever made by the land board on the subject matter. Mr Sepoe said the appellants were made aware of the decision of the board and further explained that it was still awaiting the High Court to inform it about the hearing date(s) of the matter.

This matter emanated from 2009 when Tlokweng Land Board advertised 285 residential plots and around 17 000 applicants applied. Tlokweng Land Board consequently undertook a vetting exercise after consultation with the Ministry of Lands and Housing.

Following that consultation, 5 000 applicants were disqualified leaving 12 000 applicants of which 500 applicants were shortlisted through a raffle system from the 12 000. From the 500 applicants, a list of 200 Batlokwa applicants were selected through interviews on a weighted system biased towards Batlokwa applicants to increase the probability of their allocation.

Following was a reconsideration by the Tlokweng Land Board having noted amongst others, that the Tribal Land Act did not sanction the giving of preference to any particular tribe in the allocation of land and resolved that the raffle be re-done to select 285 applicants from the 12 000 who were vetted.

The land board at the Land Tribunal was represented by Mr Tshiamo Motsumi of Mark Bahuma Attorneys who would still represent it at the High Court. At the time of going to press, it was not yet clear who would represent the applicants. ENDS