Melanie Gosling
IT is a chilly winter morning in the hamlet of Lekkersing, one of four Richtersveld villages torn apart by bitter in-fighting over a land restitution settlement worth R285 million.
Saturday marked what the people of Richtersveld hope is an end to the feud over the largest land restitution in South Africa.
In March, the Northern Cape High Court, at the request of two rival groups, appointed a respected Cape Town lawyer, Taswell Papier, partner in law firm Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, to take charge of the affairs of the Sida Hub Community Property Association.
The history of the association, which manages more than R200 million in assets for the community, including mineral rights, has been marked by clashes and allegations of nepotism and mismanagement of funds.
Like the other three towns of Kuboes, Eksteenfontein and Sanddrift, Lekkersing is remote and, in spite of the multi-million settlement awarded three years ago, is still impoverished.
Willem January, 45, walks down the only paved street in the dorp, wearing a brightly-coloured beanie and wrap-around sunglasses.
“Ja, there’s a big thing happening there in Kuboes today, a very big thing. For three years, there’s been pain and suffering over this money, and we’re saying: ‘Now where is our money? We want to know, and you must tell us.’ This meeting, today, we’re hoping it will come right now, because like this, it cannot go on.” He laughs, gap-toothed, asks for a beer and urges us to hurry to Kuboes.
Kuboes is at the end of the map: the corrugated dirt road goes there and no further. It is a tiny settlement of cement-brick houses and corrugated iron shanties, with a matjieshuis here and there – but 21st century style, with sheets of plastic covering the bent wood frames instead of the traditional reed mats of the Nama people.
It spreads out over low hills of scrub vegetation, on the border of the Richtersveld National Park, the only mountain desert in the country.
On the gravel sports field, an enormous white marquee stands out like a pool of spilt milk on a wooden floor, surrounded by bakkies, cars and half-a-dozen hired buses. Hundreds of people from the four Richtersveld towns have come to hear the announcement of the new committee of the community property association. These are the democratically-elected leaders, a team who the Richtersvelders hope will lead them out of in-fighting and corruption, along a new path of unity and development.
The new committee has to ensure that the millions in the land restitution settlement – the largest in South Africa – will be used to uplift the people in the almost forgotten scrubland of the far Northern Cape.
The land restitution settlement is a combination of land, money and mineral rights. It includes R190 million paid into the Richtersveld Investment Holding Company, R50m for “development purposes”, and R45m which diamond mining company Alexcor will be transferring to the association for rent.
Since 2009, there have been at least five cases in the Northern Cape High Court over the land settlement, with two major groups fighting over who had the right to control the millions, amid allegations of corruption and nepotism.
After Papier was appointed to sort out the mess, nominations for a new committee were called for, and Papier, with the Independent Electoral Commission, evaluated them and set a date for elections.
On Thursday and Friday last week, the Richtersvelders went to the polls. On Saturday, they celebrated in the big marquee as Papier announced the winners: Edwin Farmer, Jacobus Farmer, Lydia Obies, Ryno Thomas, Magrieta Fortuin, Josiesa Joseph, Mary Nero and Willem Diergaardt – controversial former chair of the previous community property association. As each name was announced and the members filed up on to the stage, their supporters cheered and whistled. Diergaardt broke down and wept.
One by one, the new committee members took the microphone and made their promises to serve the people, urging the community to put their divisions behind them.
“Julle het my groot gemaak in Sanddrift,” Magrieta Fortuin said.
“I thank you. With the Lord’s help, we will succeed.”
Josiesa Josephs said: “You have a vision, you knew who you wanted … Give this committee a chance to see development happen, and let’s walk out of here as one community, not as two opposing groups.”
Then people from the floor took the microphones.
Clifton Louw, a candidate who was not elected, stood up and said: “This is the most important day in the Richtersveld history … Richtersvelders decided these are our leaders. Now we must stand together, ons moet eendragtig wees. Without that, we will be nothing.”
Later, as the people queued outside to get their lunch of hamburgers and fruit in polystyrene containers, Louw explained why the community had become embroiled in in-fighting from the moment the settlement was granted.
“It was about power and it was about money. Vultures came from outside when they saw the money, and wanted to take it. Originally, the land claim was for the Nama descendents, because it was the Nama people that were driven off the land. My father’s ouma was a Nama woman and my father’s oupa was ’n witman. But now there are names on that list in the settlement who are not descendants, but that is no longer a problem. We have to move forward, and there is enough money for everyone, so the names are no longer disputed. We must put that behind us and look forward to development.”