Farm residents in Msukaligwa Municipal area march to Department of Rural Development and Land Reform over land
According to the forum, people living on farms owned by white people are apparently still physically, mentally, socially and emotionally oppressed and work like slaves and earn small wages.
Residents of farms around Msukaligwa took to the streets of Ermelo to protest over the oppression and poverty they face daily on the farms on Friday, 13 July.
The residents, collectively named the Msukaligwa Emapulazini Forum, marched to the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform for assistance regarding the issue of land and basic service delivery on farms.
The forum asked the department to give them written permission to do mix farming through cooperatives, which they said would create jobs and fight poverty on the farms.
According to the forum, people living on farms owned by white people are still physically, mentally, socially and emotionally oppressed and work like slaves and earn small wages.
https://highvelder.co.za/65905/farm-residents-march-living-conditions-farms/
The forum asked the department to intervene and requested that land should be shared equally in good spirit and faith by developing a partnership agreement.
This they said would help them as residents to gain farming experience in management and administration.
The forum declared 2019 as the year in which they will fight against poverty and poverty on farms in the region.
The Emapulazini Forum also handed over a memorandum to the heads of department, with a list of demands that include:
- As farm residents, they asked the department to treat them as human beings and provide basic services such as low-cost housing, water, electricity and sanitation.
- The councillors and ward committee members who are recognised by local government to be elected by farm residents and not just be appointed by the powers that be.
- Residents requested that government, through the Rural Development and Land Reform Department, speeds up processes of land claims.
- A land claim office to be allocated in Msukaligwa so that farm residents do not have to travel long distances to submit land claims.
- The process of appointing people to work on farms owned by the department be revisited, because residents of the farms have been staying there since the apartheid era.
“The department fails to introduce these people, and residents feel they are encroaching on the land and government should consider giving these farms to families living there,” Mr Ignatius Mahlangu, chairman of Msukaligwa Emapulazini Forum, said.
The forum was of the opinion that these people have no power over the farms and gave the department 21 days to remove them as they do not recognise them as South African citizens.
Ms Zandile Shongwe accepted and signed the memorandum on behalf of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.
