New battle for District 6

Disillusioned District Six land owners have launched an urgent application in the Land Claims Court to halt all development in the historic area pending a forensic audit of the District Six Trust.

The Trust has been acting on behalf of claimants throughout the drawn-out land restitution process, but not all of them accept its bona fides.

The applicants are also seeking an interdict preventing the City of Cape Town, the Land Claims Commission and the Trust from implementing a restitution and redevelopment agreement the Tripartite Agreement in November 2000.

But the Trust says the lawsuit is "misguided" and describes its timing as "malicious".

"We are ready to go forward after we have been delayed for 13 years," the Trust's Nas Ally said yesterday, adding that he did not know "what the court action (was) all about".

"The Trust followed procedures; everybody can be satisfied," he said.

More than a decade after the first democratic elections, most of the District Six land owners have yet to receive fair compensation for the land from which they were ousted during the apartheid era, and many have died waiting to be returned to the area.

While the lack of progress over the years has been blamed on various factors with frequent conflicts between stakeholders the issue came to a head last year after the Cape Argus reported that private developments worth millions of rand were under way in the area.

These were taking place while a moratorium on private development in District Six was understood to be in place. At the same time, dispossessed land owners complained they were offered "a measly" R40 000 for their valuable land.

The District Six Advocacy Committee, a group representing land owners who say they have been left out of the restitution process, said no one could explain the circumstances around the initial sale of a portion of restitution land to a private buyer in 1990. The property was sold last year to a developer for R9-million.

The committee is also questioning why the Trust could not account for the 1990 sale.

In August, the committee demanded a thorough investigation into the restitution process as well as the Trust, which it claimed was "illegal" and "invalid" as it (the Trust) did not have a mandate to represent claimants.

Last month, the committee made good on its August threats of legal action, filing a notice of motion with the Land Claims Court in Randburg.

Two of its members are the applicants in this case, which is set to be heard on Monday.

In court papers, the applicants contend that the Trust accepted the R40 000 compensation for a standard erf without being mandated to do so, and has never convened an annual general meeting or submitted its books for auditing.

"The property owners were at all material times left in the dark as far as the restitution process of District Six was concerned, notwithstanding several attempts to set up meetings with the Trust," they say.

"(The Trust) has acted recklessly and has at all material times remained unaccountable."

The applicants are Mogamat Majiet and Hannah Manley, representing the Advocacy Committee, and the respondents are the 17 trustees of the Trust, the Western Cape Land Claims Commissioner, the Director-General of Land Affairs, the City of Cape Town and the Master of the High Court.

Commenting on the legal action, the city's director of housing, Hans Smit, said a number of issues in the motion were similar to concerns raised by the city in the past.

He said the city, which has received senior counsel's opinion regarding District Six, wrote to the Chief Land Claims Commissioner in December, requesting an interview "as early as possible" for this month.

The proposed agenda for the discussion will include the legal opinion report, the revised Trust Deed document, and the way forward for District Six.

Smit said the city wanted to formulate an implementation plan to ensure beneficiaries were properly consulted and represented.

Ally said yesterday the Trust would hold its first AGM this month. "The only thing left to do is to get buy-in from claimants." - Cape Argus