A protracted legal battle stands in the way of the Bakgatla ba Lekhuleni clan’s attempt to lay claim to large parts of Pretoria. A Mail & Guardian report notes the clan lodged a claim, which includes farms, schools, businesses and more than 500 residential properties, mostly on prime land in the suburbs of Pretoria East, in the Tshwane municipality.

The claim, lodged by Chief Victor Velaphi (VV) Lekhuleni in October 1996, is one of thousands made to urban land in SA.

However, Lekhuleni was murdered by an unknown assailant in Mamelodi in 2015. He was succeeded by his brother, Happy Stephens Lekhuleni, who is now the applicant in the legal battle involving the clan, business organisation Sakeliga, the Land Claims Court and the Regional Land Claims Commissioner responsible for Gauteng and North West. The commissioner published the claim in the Government Gazette on 12 December 2014 and 6 February 2015. This followed an order by the court after the clan had brought an application over the long delays in publishing the claim.

Sakeliga is challenging the validity of the claim and wants the 2014 order declared invalid. Sakeliga’s law and policy analyst, Armand Greyling, said the organisation ‘believe(s) that the land claim is frivolous and vexatious as defined in section 11 of the Restitution of Land Rights Act, 22 of 1994 as amended’. He added that the claim was devoid of merit and that Lekhuleni had no authority to pursue it because he is not a traditional leader.

Furthermore, according to the M&G report, Greyling said: ‘It will be impossible for the state to provide them with the land claimed as most of it is already densely populated and developed. This means the state will in all likelihood have to pay vast amounts of compensation to the claimants and, because of the vast amount of tax funds that would be paid out, it is of paramount importance that such funds are not paid out to claimants who attempt to make money out of the state by abusing the restitution process for personal gain.' 

But Lekhuleni’s lawyer, Vivien de Klerk, said the clan was ‘of the respectful view that Afrisake’s (Sakeliga’s) claims are unfounded and without any merit’. The clan has also approached the court after the Regional Land Claims Commissioner gave notice of his intention to ‘de-gazette’ their land claim because it was challenged and had yet to be decided by a court. The clan claims to have been forcibly removed from their land between 1958 and 1960 after having settled there in the 1800s.

Full Mail & Guardian report