Government has missed the deadline to respond to the District Six Working Committee’s demands about the number of land claims it had received and those it had approved for financial compensation, says a Cape Times report. The committee’s attorney, Nicki van’t Riet, said yesterday that they would go ahead with litigation following the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti’s failure to provide answers to their letter of demands sent more than a month ago.

‘We are going to aggressively go ahead with litigation in this process. According to the government, the land claims for District Six are almost finalised with only 100 claimants to finalise. But according to information we have received there are still 2 300 members outstanding,’ said Van’t Riet. The situation had become ‘intolerable and in breach of the constitutional right to restitution’, the committee said.

In the letter, the committee wanted to know how many people had claimed for land restoration and by when they could take occupation and ownership. They further wanted to know what steps government would take to accelerate the process of restitution, when each step would be taken and what the concrete outcome of each step would be.

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