The provincial House of Traditional Leaders was officially opened on Wednesday, and various issues affecting the province were brought forward.

This annual sitting was held at the Mpumalanga Legislature in Mbombela. Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane stated in her speech that a critical issue regarding illegal land invasions has arisen.

“Much work has been done already to set up mechanisms to stop this uncontrollable scourge. It must be repeatedly stated that land invasions are a criminal act and must be curbed with the full might of the law.”

The MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Busi Shiba, said local government was concerned about increasing incidents of land invasions and disputes in the province. She urged the tribal councillors/headsmen to respect the traditional leaders.

According to Shiba, when the public illegally occupy the land, they demand basic services such as electricity, water and road infrastructure.

“We know that the traditional leaders would never allow the public to occupy an area illegally. The public needs to wait for us as the government, because there is a law that guides us. The law says that we need to first provide services.

It is difficult for the government to have to start providing services after the community members have already occupied an area which they are not supposed to reside in. We are pleading with them to respect the municipality, traditional leaders and government,” she said.

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Shiba added that people who are hosting cultural activities, such as initiation schools, have not been given permission to do so. “Before they start they must have risk mitigations; we need to check that.

Even the Department of Health is not aware of these initiations having started. We work together with health when it comes to issues of Ingoma (initiation schools).”

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The chairperson of the House of Traditional Leaders, Inkosi Sandile Ngomane, said the traditional leaders have been devastated by Covid-19. “We accepted this and stopped the Ingoma practices.” Ngomane said they were, however, considering meeting with the MEC and premier to restart these.