University of Limpopo, community smoke peace pipe over land

The University of Limpopo has reiterated its commitment to working with the community of Malepeperu-Nchichane who has lodged a land claim against its Agricultural Experimental Farm in Mankweng outside Polokwane in Limpopo.

The community’s claim was gazetted in 2007.

The Land Claims Commission told SABC News that the university has taken the matter to the Land Claims Court after they could not find common ground with the claimants.

The university’s Director of Communication, Victor Kgomoeswana, says during an engagement that they had with the claimants in August last year, they agreed that the university would continue to utilise the land, pending the outcome of the claim.

He says, “We agreed that pending the outcome of the land claims process we shall remain on the farm, we will do what we do, but we agreed with the community that one, they will have access to their ancestral graves, they will have access to the grazing pasture, the bottom line is that we cannot as an African university disregard the sentiment and the emotive nature of a land claim.”

The Land Claims Commission’s Miyelani Nkatingi says the commission has appointed legal representatives for the claimants.

“We gazetted the claim in 2007, we met with the stakeholders which are the University of Limpopo and ZZ2. We further valued the land with the aim of acquiring the land for the claimants. We workshopped the claimants on the settlement options and indeed they opted for the restoration of the man. The university was cooperative to release the land, then when we were in the process of negotiating the settlement unfortunately there was no cooperation from the claimants they were always threatening invasion the university took the claim to court.”

VIDEO: The University of Limpopo embroiled in community land claim: