19 Jan 2020

Residents of Chanoga in North West District have been urged to register inheritance assets on time to avoid delays and family feuds.

In an interview recently, the village’s chief, Kgosi Oateng Setlhodi, expressed concern over the growing number of inheritance issues, adding that that such could be avoided if the property was registered.

Due to many cases, the leadership embarked on a mission around Chanoga and its catchment areas to sensitise the community about the process of inheritance.

He said failure to do so resulted in fights within families.

Kgosi Setlhodi pointed out that some took more than 20 years without giving property to the rightful heirs and that sibling disputes could result in lengthy and expensive legal actions.

He said Chanoga Customary Court was overwhelmed with inheritance disputes and encouraged members of the community to follow the right procedure and register inheritance property to avoid disputes. 

Kgosi Setlhodi explained that disputes over a treasured, but valueless picture could cause bad feelings within the family and those bad feelings could persist for a long time hence the need to do the right thing.

He also stated that during their meetings, they also had an opportunity to discuss issues of concern such as the increasing number of debts, consumption of alcohol and drug abuse that resulted in youth delinquency. 

He stated that they had registered a high number of issues of debts amounting to over P40 000 and use of substances/drugs such as dagga at Chanoga customary court.

Some of the debts, he said, dated back to 1982, adding that it was unfortunate since people had delayed to settle the debts. 

He said they managed to trace the concerned parties and come up with options of payment and some accepted to be paid in kind while some opted for reconciliation.

Kgosi Setlhodi said their main target was to collect all the outstanding debts in 12 months considering the fact that the cases had dragged for years.

With regard to consumption of dagga, he blamed some shebeen owners in the villages for selling the substance to members of the community. 

The usage of dagga and alcohol, he said, had resulted in escalating incidents of criminal activities such as murder, theft and suicides.

On other issues, Kgosi Setlhodi noted that they had an opportunity to sensitizse the community about some agreed fines set by bogosi and the community in the district.

He revealed that the fines were discussed and agreed as some people felt that they were over charged especially for bogadi, child maintenance, damages paid for pregnancy (tshenyo) and for legalising children (go tsaya bana).

He reported that for bogadi, they settled for P12000, damages paid for pregnancy and child maintenance is P8000 while fines for legalizing children (go tsaya bana) is P4000 or two beasts.  

Kgosi Setlhodi expressed concern about incidents of cohabitation and encouraged couples to marry especially those who had cohabited for many years.

He advised couples to at least exercise traditional marriage if they had not enough resources to do the modern ones. Ends