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Public Works Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko, MP, has handed over letters of intent to grant property rights to 30 emerging Black Farmers in Tafelkop in Limpopo. Four pieces of land, amounting to 220 hectares has been subdivided into farming plots.

The beneficiaries of the land will use the properties for agricultural purposes, aimed at not just alleviating poverty for their immediate families but also to be active in the agricultural economy of the country.

In the past, the property was acquired by the apartheid government for former White Soldiers who fought in the Second World War. Tafelkop farmers used to work for the White farmers until the new dispensation. When land reform legislation was implemented and land redistributed to Black people, White farmers vacated state-owned farms without handing them back to government.

Tafelkop farm dwellers saw an opportunity to work the farms and approached government for permission to use the land for farming. The then Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Mr Derek Hannekom gave the instruction to the Department to facilitate the transfer of the farms to the black farmers through the Land Reform Programme. Unfortunately a lot of bureaucratic delays ensued in the intervening period and the farmers struggled to receive formalised documentation from the State.

The community’s persistence and resilience for over 20 years to being legal owners of the land is now just one more step away from being realised.

Minister Nhleko said it was a great honour for him to undertake this great historical work of handing over letters that confirm the department’s determination to hand over pieces of land to emerging black farmers.

He said the work that is being undertaken resonates very closely with the undertaking that government has made to the people of quickening the pace of radical economic transformation on all fronts of our social life.

During his speech, Minister Nhleko said he believed that the department’s effort in returning land to the indigenous people who are prepared to work it, will ensure that sustainable livelihoods and job creation will be realised in the area.

Issued by Department of Public Works