15 Dec 2024

The number of pending applications in the Kgatleng Land Board area of jurisdiction for residential plots as at December 4 was 139 644, 80 790 under Oodi Sub-Land Board, 35 671 for Mochudi Sub-Land Board, 13 585 for Artesia Sub-Land Board and 9 598 for Mathubudukwane Sub-Land Board applications.

Answering a question in Parliament, Minister of Lands and Agriculture, Dr Micus Chimbombi said the total number of applications for agricultural or farming lands were 12 854 as of December 4 across the four sub-land boards being 5 992 for Mochudi, 5 814 Artesia, 532 Oodi and Mmathubudukwane 516.

Dr Chimbombi said there were no pending applications for commercial plots as they were only advertised when they were readily available for allocation.

He said Kgatleng Land Board currently had a caseload of 457 disputes pending before the main land board and its subordinate land boards, and 90 before the courts of law making a total of 547.

Dr Chimbombi said there were various reasons that led to the delay in resolving the disputes such as failure by parties to the disputes to turn up when invited for hearings by the land board, limited skills and capacity to deal with disputes by the boards, insufficient evidence provided by the parties to the dispute and budgetary constraints which limited the number of sittings to address the cases.

In order to improve its efficiency in terms of case disposal, he said the land board had started invoking the provision of Regulation 11 of the Tribal Land Act Regulation of 2022 by issuing a subpoena.

Dr Chimbombi said the land board would be trained on dispute resolution by February next year, so that they increased the number of cases disposed per sitting from an average of four per day at least double the number and involvement of dikgosi in addressing some of the land matters.

The minister was answering a question from Kgatleng Central MP, Mr Mpho Morolong who wanted to know the number of pending residential, commercial, farming plots or land applications at various land boards in Kgatleng and the number of disputed land matters and reasons for delay to resolve such. ENDS