Public works to donate 12 farms to Enoch Mgijima municipality

The Eastern Cape department of public works and infrastructure plans to donate 12 farms to the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality to help unlock land for housing development and formalise long-established informal settlements in Komani and Whittlesea.

The move, confirmed by the department this week, is aimed at addressing landlessness, speeding up township establishment and enabling residents living on the farms to obtain secure tenure and access to municipal services.

Department spokesperson Vuyani Nkasayi said 11 of the farms were situated in Komani and one in Whittlesea.

“The department intends to donate 12 farms to the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality to facilitate township development within the municipality,” he said.

“This undertaking is informed by the fact that these farms have informal townships which are not contributing to the mandate of the department.

“This is further supported by the Government Immovable Asset Management Act, which provides for the disposal of properties to support the service delivery objectives of other spheres of government.

“The disposal of these farms presents a practical system to navigate and redress historical social injustices, namely landlessness.”

Nkasayi said the donation would help remove obstacles that had prevented residents from obtaining legal ownership of the land they occupied.

“By donating the farms, the department is playing an important role as an enabler in undoing red tape related to access to land, as the municipality will be in a position to effect tenure upgrades for citizens already residing on the farms and ensure the formalisation of township residential areas,” he said.

“This will further unlock services linked to this formalisation, such as the provision of bulk infrastructure, including water, roads and electricity.”

The farms have not yet been valued because they are currently operating as informal settlements without formal agreements or title deeds.

Nkasayi said the department was sourcing values from municipal valuation rolls and would also conduct its own valuations before submitting a recommendation to premier Oscar Mabuyane for approval of the transfer.

He said the donation formed part of the department’s broader asset disposal strategy and similar initiatives could be rolled out elsewhere in the province.

“The department is required to identify surplus land to be disposed of for purposes of aiding service delivery in other spheres of government, in this case unlocking human settlements and economic development,” he said.

“The strategy further aims to contribute to addressing the historically skewed ownership and land use of immovable assets in SA.”

Enoch Mgijima municipal spokesperson Lonwabo Kowa confirmed that council had resolved to accept the donation during a meeting last week.

However, he said the municipality was still at an early stage of the process.

“The council meeting only sat last week, on May 27, and municipal teams will still go and assess the farms,” Kowa said.

“We are at the most initial stage now and only after all the inspections will the municipality be able to provide accurate information on the 12 farms.

“When all farms have been assessed, the municipality will decide how they will be used and everything will be above board.”

Kowa said the municipality continued to experience incidents of illegal land invasions, but efforts to reclaim affected land were under way through negotiations and legal processes.

He said demand for housing remained high across the municipality, particularly in Komani and Whittlesea.

“There is a huge demand for housing in both Komani and Whittlesea and other areas within the municipal jurisdiction,” he said.

However, Kowa noted that Enoch Mgijima was not a housing developer, as the responsibility for housing development rested with the provincial department of human settlements.

The proposed donation comes as the municipality continues efforts to improve land tenure and property ownership.

In May, Enoch Mgijima handed over about 500 title deeds to RDP homeowners in Who Can Tell village near Whittlesea.

Mayor Madoda Papiyana said at the time that the title deeds represented an important step towards securing land ownership and tenure for residents.

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