Press Statement: Western Cape Municipal land

PRESS STATEMENT

WESTERN CAPE MUNICIPAL LAND GIVE IT BACK TO THE RIGHTFUL OWNERS!!!:

EFF

Following extensive investigations, the Economic Freedom Fighters will be embarking on a program to expose municipalities in the Western Cape in the unlawful selling and renting of municipal land.

Today, the 25th of February we are protesting for the return of stolen land in Stellenbosch. The EFF’s Provincial leader, Bernard Joseph, is accusing inter alia Stellenbosch Municipality of underhand tactics and corruptive behaviour by selling off land at below market related prices and renting out land until 2041.

This is against provisions set out in legal documents. “This land is to be used for the social and economic development of all the people in Stellenbosch and not for a chosen few and politically connected”.

He is of the opinion that all municipalities in the Western Cape falls into this category and mentioned that the EFF’s investigation included the screening of legal documents. “One of our cardinal pillars is the expropriation of land without compensation and that is exactly what we are going to do when we are governing some of the municipalities after the 2016 local government elections”, he said.

Joseph promise the release of more explosive information over the coming weeks and months. This process the City of Cape Town are embarking on by evicting poor people from houses, but yet have given away land cheaply to the rich people in Stellenbosch, clearly illustrates the way minority white farmers, connected businesses and political figures are getting preferential treatment in this province under the DA administration compared to the poor people in the rest of the province. Farm evictions occur daily and it leaves the poor farmworkers with insurmountable problems to find alternative accommodation, let alone means to access basic needs and services. But colonial land thieves and the City of Cape Town laughs as the poor starve. Some farmers have 10-15 pieces of very expensive agricultural land which are being rented at less than R10 000 per year to businesses that create vast wealth and few fair jobs.

Expropriation of land under the previous government was achieved at minimal cost. Many aspirant farmers who are non-white, non-verkrampte, non-inheritors of vast tracts of land are struggling to gain access to land, but yet the municipalities prior to 1994 gave these farms away at rock bottom prices for 50 years.

This is tantamount to stealing land.

EFF, therefore demands the expropriation of land without compensation for equal redistribution.