Indigenous First Nation Advocacy South Africa Submission

Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development 7th August 2020 Ms. Phumla Nyamza 3rd Floor, 90 Plein Street Cape Town, 8000 Tel: 021 403 3852 Cell: 083 709 8492 Fax: 086 504 6848 Email: [email protected] Re: OBJECTION TO UPGRADING OF LAND TENURE AMENDMENT BILL Colleagues, The Griqua community of South Africa and especially those within the Kwa-Zulu Natal province noted the intention of the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to upgrade land tenure rights to full ownership. We would like to bring to the departments attention that we have not yet fully settled our claims of our ancestral land within Griqualand East. During the first half of the nineteenth century the Griqua people were a formidable force in the Transorange area within the borders of Sothern Africa. With the Exodus of Adam Kok III and his people from Philippolis to No-man’s-land (Griqualand East – Present day Kwa- Zulu Natal) in 1861 the district of Mount Currie and the Town of Kokstad was born. The Indigenous First Nation Advocacy South Africa (IFNASA), because of its members of Griqua People within the borders of Griqualand East, has a vested interest in the land dispossession of our People. We are fully aware that the South African constitution in section 25 (7) explicitly makes reference to the fact that land lost before 1913 cannot be claimed. We are also aware of the rejection of two major claims of urban and rural land in Griqualand East (Mount Currie District), lodge by two of the community’s members. The claimants claim both “urban and rural land in the then district of Mount Currie [now called or forms part of Sisonke District] and the town of Kokstad” and the rural land claimed before the land claims closed on the 31st December 1998. The claims included “the whole of the original East Griqualand, including the land formerly owned by the Griqua people under [Chief] Adam Kok III, which includes farms granted to families and Griqua Communities” and the urban land includes the towns on Cedarville, Clydesdale, Harding, Kokstad, Matatiele, Mount Ayliff, Mount Frere, Rietvlei, Qumbu, Tsolo, Umzimkhulu and other towns of the original East Griqualand. The proposed upgrade will be prejudice against us. The claims by two community leaders of the Griqua People were overlapping and subsequently were dismissed. It should at this stage of our objection be borne in mind that the property descriptions of urban and rural land claimed continue to be riddled with technicalities, corruption, and illegalities. We hereby state our express disapproval and outright rejection of the proposal by the Honourable Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to amend/upgrade the Land Tenure Rights Act, 1991 with any and all of its provisions, inserts, substitutions and amendments and petition the Minister to immediately halt all activities, actions, proceedings and undertakings related to and associated with the upgrading of land tenure rights to ownership. The reason is that the Griqua People will be petitioning the Minister and the Cabinet for a Review of the rejected land claims. We request that the Portfolio Committee offer us an opportunity to make ‘Oral Submission’ so we can provide the basis for the Review of the Land Commissioners rejection of our community’s land claims. Kind Regards, Anthony Phillip Williams Executive Chairperson Indigenous First Nation Advocacy South Africa +27 (0) 66 250 4948 [email protected] www.ifnasa.co.za .

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