NELSPRUIT – Residents of Mataffin peacefully marched in the city on Wednesday in protest against how the Matsafeni Trust was being run.
The trust, as the owners of this estate’s land, has legal occupants from Mataffin and members of the Mdluli clan as beneficiaries. Recently, the two groups’ unhappiness with one another took a turn in the High Court, where a judge’s decision on unlawful occupiers on the land is pending.
The protesters claimed to be lawful occupants and therefore beneficiaries of the trust. According to Col Leonard Hlathi, spokesman for the provincial police, they had obtained permission for the march and behaved very well.
They went to Hall and Sons, where they handed over a memorandum requesting it to stop assisting the Mdluli administrators of the trust with farming, while the overwhelming majority of the trustees did not benefit from the activities.
Mr Rob Snaddon, managing director of Halls, from which the Matsafeni Trust won the property in a 2003 land-restitution settlement, said it was in the process of facilitating a negotiated settlement of the dispute.
“The land includes significant farms and Halls has been involved in assisting the trust with managing its farms. The Mataffin community is unhappy that it is assisting the Matsafeni Trust as they believe that it favours the Mdluli beneficiaries. Halls hopes that the parties will be able to resolve their differences in the near future,” said Snaddon.
According to Mr Richard Spoor, an attorney acting on behalf of the beneficiaries, the agricultural land owned by the trust amounts to about 7 000 hectares.
The residents marched to the offices of Mr Meshack Silinda, a professional trustee who was appointed by the court in 2008 as chairman of Matsafeni Trust Working Committee.
Mr Mduduzi Ngwamba, spokesman for the disgruntled residents, told Lowvelder beforehand that they wanted to know why they had not held any annual general meetings since he had been appointed, and how the money being made from farming activities was being spent.
Silinda said the group had actually demanded his resignation. “I am not aware of whether they are beneficiaries of the trust. I can confirm, however, that the disgruntled people are in illegal occupation of the land.”
He confirmed that negotiations were ongoing between the Mdluli clan, which had instituted the original land claim, the beneficiaries of the trust, Halls and government. He said they were at a sensitive stage. “The main reason we have the current negotiations is because we, the trustees, have made it clear that it is impossible to have elections under the current composition of the beneficiaries.”
The protesters also paid a visit to SARS, requesting them to investigate the trust’s tax, and the provincial Department of Agriclture, Rural Development and Land Administration, requesting a meeting with the minister Mr Gugile Nkwinti. At the time of going to press, the department had not commented to the newspaper.
Everybody was given seven days to respond to the marchers’ requests. Mr Roy Mdluli, a trustee and member of the said clan, refused to comment, saying, “Lowvelder is racist”.
