A MPUMALANGA family is hanging in limbo over a 45 000-hectare land claim dispute.
The Mdluli family from KaBokweni outside White River wants their land, which they claimed 25 years ago during the lodgment of land claims in 1998.
The land on Primkop farm near the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport is used for macadamia production.
The family alleges that the new owners denied them access to their gogo's grave, who lived on the farm and died in 1913.
Family member Mandla Mdluli told Daily Sun that the previous owners would allow them to access the farm and perform their rituals.
"We want to access the farm to perform rituals on our grandfather's grave. We've been requesting the current owner to allow us to perform our African rituals, but the owner is not communicating with us. Instead, he has referred us to his lawyers," he said.
Mandla said the family is worried because the process is dragging.
"The people who lodged the dispute have already passed away. We took over, but now we're worried that should something happen to us as well, our children wouldn't know what to do. They won't get this land back," he said.
Another family member, Danisile Mthembu-Mdluli, said that the family requested the current owner that they should come on 24 September every year to perform their rituals.
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She claimed the owner agreed and told them to come in groups.
Danisile said they gave him the list of people to access the grave.
She claimed the owner told them to remove the remains and put them somewhere when they suggested erecting a tombstone.
"He is refusing us access, but he knows that we are the rightful owners of the land. He is just doing technicalities by refusing," she said.
At least 6 637 land claims were lodged before the cut-off date in December 1998 in the province.
To date, the government has settled 3 336 claims. Seven-hundred and three claims were transferred to other provinces, with 963 dismissed.
More than 1 000 claims lodged on the cut-date in December 1998 are still outstanding.
Sam Nkosi, the chief director for Restitution support in the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Affairs in Mpumalanga, said R8,1 billion has already been spent in the province for financial compensation and land compensation since 1998.
"One of the challenges that we have in terms of the settlement of the land claims, you would find out that when a claim is lodged, the landowner will dispute the validity of the claim and say these people are not the correct ones that lodged the claim on the property then the matter is referred to court. We have a delay there because there's only one land claims court for the country," he said
The matter is expected to be placed on the court roll of the Land Claims Court in 2023.
Several attempts to find the owner went fruitless as he couldn't be reached for a comment.
