Activists say the appointment of a Special Master of the Land Claims Court should speed up the process, yet less than half of land claims by former labour tenants have been finalised. Labour tenants were given access to land during apartheid in exchange for labour on commercial farms. A 1998 law entitled them to apply for title deeds on the land they occupy, but the process has been very slow. Following a 2019 Constitutional Court ruling, a Special Master of Labour Tenants was appointed to supervise and assist the Department of Agriculture in processing these claims.
When Sge Mjoka’s father submitted a land claim in 2001, he did not expect that 22 years later his family would still be waiting for the title deed. “This process has taken years and years for us,” Mjoka says. “It started with our father and he died before the process was finalised, without getting the land. We would like it to be resolved quickly. You end up wanting to give up because of how long it takes.” Mjoka’s father was a labour tenant, meaning he was given access to a piece of land on a citrus and sugarcane farm in KwaZulu‑Natal in exchange for labour. Such arrangements were common under apartheid and have been described by activists as unjust. After apartheid, the 1996 Labour Tenants Act sought to rectify these injustices by granting title deeds to labour tenants. The deadline for submitting claims was 2001, and about 22 000 claims were lodged.
Siya Sithole, programmes manager for the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), notes that there were more than half a million labour tenants in the country, but most did not submit claims. AFRA, a civic organisation founded in 1979, supports labour tenants who claim land rights. The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has been criticised—by AFRA and by the Constitutional Court—for being inefficient and slow. In many cases, the original claimants died before their claims were finalised. In a 2022 presentation to Parliament, the department said 10 992 cases had been finalised and 9 468 applications remained unresolved, mostly in KwaZulu‑Natal. If these statistics are correct, there has been no improvement since 2016, when similar figures were presented. Sithole doubts that the 10 992 cases have truly been resolved; some claims were probably lost by the department. He also says the government and landowners tend to prefer financial compensation rather than issuing title deeds, finding money a simpler option than providing tenure security.
This leaves claimants like Mjoka caught between a rock and a hard place: continue waiting for title deeds or accept financial compensation and leave the land—and their home. Mjoka, 42, and his 12 family members depend on the land for their livelihoods. He was born on the farm, and some relatives are buried there. Today, Mjoka and two family members work on the farm for minimum wage. Leaving would completely disrupt their lives. “We don’t have anywhere else to go. This is the only home I have known,” he says. “The money is not enough and it will not sustain us forever. The land will sustain us for much longer.” Mjoka plans to grow crops and breed cattle on the land. “Why must we, as black people, give up our land for money while the white farmers keep the land and continue to make money from it?”
**Signs of hope**
In 2013, AFRA led litigation in the Land Claims Court, arguing that the government had not met its obligations under the Land Tenants Act. One applicant, Bekindlela Mwelase, was 82 when the case began and died in 2018. The court ordered the department to provide recent data on unsettled claims, but in April 2015 the department claimed it needed two years to capture the details. Applicants then asked the court to appoint a Special Master of Labour Tenants to assist the department. The Land Claims Court ruled in AFRA’s favour, but the department successfully appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal. AFRA took the matter to the Constitutional Court in 2019, which set aside the appeal and ordered the appointment of a Special Master. Professor Richard Levin has since been appointed to the post.
Sithole says they are hopeful that the situation will improve for land‑tenant claimants. “In the last two financial years, through this national programme led by the department and supervised by the Special Master, we have seen faster processing of these claims,” he says. “We now have the data to monitor the situation.” Quarterly meetings with the Special Master and the department allow all parties to ensure transparency. Yet Mjoka remains tired of waiting. “The process of claiming land is a tough war. You think it’s getting better and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but then you face a setback and it feels like you’re going nowhere.”
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