Mystery surrounds the veracity of a list of farms published by AfriForum that the Government would expropriate without compensation.

The list has been widely circulated and includes 195 farms rather than the 139 purportedly ‘earmarked’ by the Government.

The list includes fours farms in the Umzinyathi and Amajuba Districts.

However Department of Rural Development and Land Reform on Monday denied the authenticity of this list.

Department spokesperson Linda Page, however, denied the authenticity of this list.

“We don’t know where they got it from,” she told News24. “There is no truth to this document.”

AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets has insisted that the document was “definitely being circulated”, although he would not provide further details on how it had reached them, other than that it emanated from a “confidential source”.

He said it was easy for the department to deny the veracity of the document headed “expropriation test cases”, and challenged it to publish the real list if they were denying the legitimacy of the one in their possession.

List can be viewed here