11 Feb 2020

Mabutsane Sub-land Board chairperson, Mr Thulaganyo Matlho, has stressed the importance of quick land allocation.

He said in most instances, their efforts were frustrated by challenges such as shortage of land.

Speaking in a kgotla meeting addressed by the sub-land board personnel in Mahotshwane recently, Mr Matlho said such shortage compelled the sub-land board to stop accepting further applications for ploughing fields and instead resorted to the previous arrangement where individuals were expected to scout land for themselves and apply after consultation with chiefs and neighbouring allottees.

“We faced a lot of challenges because we could no longer find enough open land to allocate ploughing fields, even after appealing to people to assist in identifying any available land. This was made even harder by the fact that we had to consider other land policies such as distance of a ploughing field from other allocations like boreholes and private farms,” he said.

He also warned that neighbouring allottees had no right to refuse with available land as had been rumoured that they reserved it for their children.

Considering other hurdles they often faced, Mr Matlho said land applications were open to every citizen as per the law and that allocations were done according to the waiting list, which may lead to locals feeling that they were kept long on the queue.

Mr Matlho also said just like other government departments, they also had shortage of resources which had reduced the frequency of touring villages for allocations.

He also condemned residents of Mahotshwane for selling valuable land, especially ploughing fields with diminishing assets like vehicles, although he said that as the sub landboard, they could only advice against such as they did not have powers to prevent people from doing so.

On other issues, Mr Matlho also cautioned those who have been allocated boreholes under specific government programmes to desist using them for different purposes, saying that the sub landboard would not hesitate to take proper action against them.

Mr Matlho was responding after Kgosi Mohurutshe Maipolelo raised concern over slow allocation of land for residents of Mahotshwane, especially ploughing fields as he said that affected their lives as the village was a remote area, meaning most of residents were non-working class that relied on farming.

He urge the sub landboard to strive for speedy allocation and cut down their turnaround time to at least a year.

For his part, headman of arbitration, Mr Motonyane Sekapane welcomed the sub-land board’s decision to resort to the old arrangement of land allocation.

He said they would now be able to interrogate outsiders before approving them for land allocation. Ends