26 Nov 2018

Maunatlala Sub-land board is owed over  P387 000 in lease payments.

The sub-land board secretary, Mr Nametsegang Mosweu said in an interview that all churches, institutional houses, businesses and any other land used for profit such as agricultural farms, were expected to pay lease fees yearly.

He said they were faced with the challenge of churches and businesses that failed to adhere to the lease payment as per agreement.

Mr Mosweu explained that the P387 000 was lease fees owed by churches only.

He explained that as from April 2018, the lease fees for churches was reduced from P500 to P100 and the arrears were from the P500 lease fees only.

He said they had listed about 90 churches, which had defaulted in their lease payments, adding that most of them had no traceable records.

The department ended up posting memos at various main dikgotla’s notice boards requesting the listed churches to come forward.

Mr Mosweu said most occupants left the plots undeveloped, adding that in most cases, they vacated the plots without furnishing the land board with details of the current occupant for data base update.

He explained that the lease payment was charged at 25 thebe per square metre.

Meanwhile, Mr Mosweu said lease fees helped in the execution of some land board activities, adding that like any other department, they acquired funds from the ministry every financial year, but they were also expected to come up with ways of raising funds, noting that lease fees were one of those.

He lamented that failure to pay as agreed crippled their intentions to keep delivering effective service to the nation since they also depended on those funds to improve their service delivery.

He said they had noticed that in most cases, those who had developed their plots paid the lease fees.

Mr Mosweu cautioned that requesting a piece of land for a project without thorough preparation and abandoning it delayed developments.

He said allocated land should be put to good use and be used for the purpose for which it was intended, failing which the land should be returned to the land board. ENDS