Mjejane beneficiaries peacefully march to petition for ConCourt’s aid
When posters with “No land, no vote” and “We defend our land” are waved around and the road past Hectorspruit is temporarily blocked, motorists usually expect the worst.
HECTORSPRUIT – Last Friday motorists were just slightly delayed when beneficiaries of the Mjejane Trust peacefully conducted a legal protest march from Mjejane to Hectorspruit in protest of not having received any benefits from their land claim, which was successful in 2007.
Once the group arrived in Hectorspruit, they witnessed the trust’s chairman, David Bhiya sign a petition asking the Constitutional Court to intervene on the rightful beneficiaries’ behalf.
The KwaLugedlane community was reportedly moved off the land in 1954 and had to relocate to several areas such as Steenbok and Mangweni.
Much controversy has followed the case for over a decade, with claimants claiming that a handful of community members manipulated the trust deed to only favour themselves. Legal battles still continue to settle on a “correct” list of beneficiaries and to account for the trust’s finances.
According to executive committee’s deputy secretary, Ephraim Thwala, the community wanted to show their disgruntlement over “not even seeing a cent” since the land claim was awarded in 2007 and not receiving any hope that the issue would be settled soon.
READ: Joining forces with KNP is key to developing local communities
A court order was granted by the North Gauteng High Court in November 2017, ruling that a new beneficiary list needed to be done and a general meeting be convened to elect a new board.
Thwala said that trust meetings are only held in KwaLugedlane and that this made it difficult for beneficiaries who have relocated to other areas of the Lowveld to attend.
A large group of the protesters were elderly people who do not always receive the notifications and therefore feel that they are being excluded from what is rightfully theirs.
The march had been planned for about a month, after the community approached the committee to organise protest action to show their dissatisfaction with the court order that was issued in 2017 and petition the Constitutional Court that it be set aside.
READ: No budget for major repairs to D533 near Hectorspruit
They wanted to do it within the framework of the law and thanked motorists for their patience during the march.
“We request the court that the interim board of trustees, who are administrators right now, take all that belongs to the people of the Mjejane Trust to the current executive committee of the Trust.
The current executive committee was elected during a mass meeting in KaMhlushwa in February last year to manage the beneficiaries’ interests.
Thwala said that the people are hoping that the court will heed to their call and that the march was their public way of saying that papers will be filed through the right channels to continue their legal battle for “what is theirs”.
