Photo by: Duane Daws
Public Works Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko has handed over letters of intent to grant property rights to 30 emerging black farmers in Tafelkop, in Limpopo, with four pieces of land, amounting to 220 ha, having been subdivided into farming plots.
The beneficiaries of the land will use the properties for agricultural purposes.
In the past, the property was acquired by the apartheid government for former white soldiers who fought in the Second World War. Tafelkop farmers used to work for the white farmers until the new dispensation.
When land reform legislation was implemented and land redistributed to black people, white farmers vacated State-owned farms without handing them back to government.
Tafelkop farm dwellers saw an opportunity to work the farms and approached government for permission to use the land for farming.
Derek Hanekom, who was the Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister at the time, gave the instruction to the department to facilitate the transfer of the farms to the black farmers through the land reform programme.
However, the Department of Public Works stated that this was disrupted by bureaucratic delays, with the farmers struggling to receive formalised documentation from the State.