Durban - After years of waiting, 15 Durban families will receive a total of R9.7 million in compensation for the land they lost under the Group Areas Act.
At a function in Durban on Tuesday night the MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development, Cyril Xaba, said the process had taken a long time as the Land Claims Commission had investigated and verified every claim.
He said 15 237 claims had been settled in KwaZulu-Natal with R9 billion paid out for land restoration and financial compensation.
In an interview afterwards Xaba said buying back land was not easy as the value was often overpriced by the sellers.
“I suspect collusion in some evaluation of land. We have paid so much for land.”
To fight this, Xaba said, the Office of the Valuer General had been created to ensure land was bought at a fair price.
KwaZulu-Natal land claims commissioner, advocate Bheki Mbili, warned the families that the money they were to receive should not become a source of conflict and encouraged them to use it “profitably”.
Mbili said there were 2 059 land claims from 1998 which had not been settled in the province. The families present all chose financial compensation instead of having their land returned.
One was the Mfeka family from uMlazi. Tozi Mfeka, 84, was ecstatic to be compensated for the house she lost in Jacobs.
“We were angry, but there was nothing we could do,” she said.
Her husband died in 2007 and she was sorry he could not witness the settlement.
Farhana Ismail, who spoke on behalf of her mother, Kadija Haffejee, a former Cato Manor resident, was satisfied with the settlement.
She said her family had lived happily with other race groups until they were moved.
“We all knew each other and lived happily together until this devastating act came.”
Ismail, 45, said her family was “broken” because of having to move as they lost friends.
Her great-grandfather, Suleman Haffejee, had bought the 1 hectare property in the 1930s and was devastated by what happened.
He died in the 1960s.
Ismail said in 1973 the government tried to force them to accept a cheque of R16 424.23 as compensation, but they refused.
The cheque was presented again in 1983. “We never cashed it,” she said.
She said when the family refused they were sent threatening letters and told the government would take the land away but still they carried on living there.
Eventually the situation became untenable as they were denied basic services and they moved out.
Ismail described the compensation as a “bitter sweet victory” as her uncle, Nazeer Haffejee, who had started the compensation process, died while waiting. Although she could not give an exact amount the family would receive, she said it was less than R500 000.
Daily News