16 Sep 2022

Ngwaketse Land Board deputy secretary Mr Phillip Makhura has informed Southern District councillors that the land board’s aspiration to allocate 21 974 plots by December is achievable.

He said so far they had allocated 5 275 plots and they were expecting 887 plots through ongoing in-house surveys. 

Additionally, he noted that surveys outsourced to private surveyors would produce 6 594 plots for the district.

Mr Makhura said the land board was working with the council on the process and over 4 000 plots were at detailing process, while the rest would be allocated through infills.

“We are working with the council on this project and the physical planning unit is working on detailing, which will produce 4 600 plots, and infills will amount to 4 618 plots. This is how we intend to achieve this target,” he said.

He noted that the boards were continuously allocating plots, save for two-week breaks reserved for the vetting process. “We have this vetting process because some of the invited applicants do not qualify for allocation,” he noted.

Mr Makhura said they continued to communicate plot allocation invitations through social media platforms in an effort to spread the message faster and to a wider audience.

On other issues, he acknowledged that there was congestion at land board offices following the introduction of the Secure Land Title.

However, he said they had since devised means to address this challenge. He said they would continue to devise strategies to address such challenges in other areas whenever the need arose.

“Kanye received high numbers of people at the beginning and we mounted a stall at Mongala mall to decongest and speed up the process. We can confirm that the numbers have since gone down,” he noted.

Additionally, he clarified that land transfer applications that were done before the new Tribal Land Act were not affected by the new changes, hence would be processed through the old procedures.

Further, Mr Makhura said they had since reversed their decision to demarcate ploughing fields at Mabutsane. 

“Around 2015 we had a plan to demarcate ploughing fields around Mabutsane area but we have since cancelled that plan after realising the land that was earmarked was not enough.”

He said the decision was communicated with the relevant stakeholders and the applicants were individually informed about the changes, and subsequently advised on the way forward. Ends