Land claim payout for 500 families

More than 500 Bhisho families are to split R42 million paid by government under the land claims programme. Photo: Bonile Bam.

More than 500 Bhisho families are to split R42 million paid by government under the land claims programme. Photo: Bonile Bam.

Published Jan 5, 2012

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More than 500 Bisho families are to split R42 million paid by government under the land claims programme after losing their ancestral plots during apartheid, the Dispatch Online reported on Thursday.

The money would be deposited into the claimants’ bank accounts next week – 14 years after two communities lodged claims with the national department of rural development and land reform.

The R42 million was owed to 368 families in Tyutyu village and 153 families in Balasi village.

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti was making headway in settling all claims across South Africa in the next few years, his spokesman Mtobeli Mxotwa was quoted as saying.

The Tyutyu village claimants were forcibly removed after the now-defunct Ciskei homeland became independent in 1981. They lost their residential homes and grazing land.

Some Tyutyu families would receive R95 303 in compensation for properties they lost, while others would get R56 377, totalling a R26m payout.

Just across Maitland Road in Bhisho, the Balasi village families would be paid R16.3m. They were removed to make way for the construction of the then-Ciskei capital shortly after 1981. – Sapa

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