Farmworkers reject PIE amendments

Farmworkers, small-scale farmers, and residents of informal settlements in the Boland region of the Western Cape joined urban land organisations and activists in rejecting the proposed Prevention of Illegal Eviction and Unlawful Occupation of Land Amendment Bill at a speak-out in Robertson on Friday. The Department of Human Settlements has been conducting hearings around the country, allowing residents to comment on the bill. Elitsha has covered hearings in Cape Town and KuGompo City. Last week, Abahlali baseMjondolo protested against the bill and called on the government to deal with the housing crisis instead.

Organised by the Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), the participants unanimously rejected the bill, saying that the amendments do not improve the existing bill. They say that the proposed bill takes away the rights they currently have under the current bill, which includes freely organising around land occupation, the requirement that a landowner obtain a court order for an eviction to be carried out, and the right to suitable alternative accommodation.

Boyce Tom from TCOE said that the bills form part of “the new forms of dispossession that are being facilitated by government in the interest of capital”. Tom said that the bill is just another way the law is being used to tighten the government’s grip on the landless. “The current bill affords the occupiers with suitable alternative accommodation, but the proposed bill wants to do away with the suitability part and proposes that any accommodation is suitable,” he said.

Activist lawyer, Nathi Mjenxane from Henk Smith & Associates, said that the amendment goes further than just to criminalise those who organise to occupy land for financial gain, but also those who occupy land for shelter. “This would also criminalise the assembling of people with the purpose of occupying land. The proposed bill also states that the occupiers would have to get the consent of the landowner. We must say no,” he said.

Matheko Mohobo from Spookytown, an informal settlement in Rawsonville, said that the area where she is from was created as a result of evictions.”When elderly women farmworkers were no longer of use to the farmers, they were dumped in the area, and that is how the informal settlement was established,” she said.

“Farmworkers continue to be evicted and people continue to be dumped in the area. The proposed bill is intended to take the small rights that we have under the current bill. It strips us of all the rights that we have and wants to leave us with nothing,” she said.

Small-scale farmer and member of both Mawubuye Land Rights Movement and Rural Women’s Assembly, Elsie Sauls, said that the majority of residents of Nkandla informal settlement were farmworkers evicted from the Ashton area. “For them to put their shacks they need to bribe the Red Ants security guards. If you don’t pay, you get evicted from there as well,” she said.

Sauls told Elitsha that she uses the land near the informal settlement to plant crops as her late father once did. Her father planted and used the land for more than 40 years but when she inquired about the possibility of getting a lease of the land from the municipality, she was told that it is privately owned and they could not provide the name or contact details of the owner. “I have been using the land for more than 25 years but there has never been a board to indicate that the land is private. It is only when I wanted to get a lease that I was told that the land belongs to a private individual,” she said

The groups will make a formal submission before the cutoff date of 16 June and the revised bill is expected to be taken to cabinet in July.