DURBAN - A FORMER project manager for the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Rural Development and Land Reform has been found guilty of stealing land and livestock awarded to labour tenants as part of the government’s land redistribution programme.
The case before the Durban Commercial Crimes Court has highlighted the extent to which corrupt officials have easily been able to manipulate the land reform process and defraud government and rightful beneficiaries.
Judgment in the landmark Kuick Vlei Settlement case comes amid ongoing parliamentary debates on the failure of the government to facilitate effective land reform.
The court heard that in working for the department as a project manager in northern KZN, Patrick Masoka devised a simple but blatantly corrupt scheme where he and his family took over ownership and control of a commercially viable farm, Kuick Vlei, near Ladysmith. The property had been bought for allocation to a family of labour tenants who lived and worked on it.
In the department’s books, the Shabalala family had become the rightful owners and qualified for government grants and assistance in line with government’s objective to support emerging farmers.
Former official Patrick Masoka has been convicted of stealing land and livestock from the Shabalala family.
Instead Masoka took over the farm and proceeded to remove cattle and sheep as if they were his own. He did this by creating a new trust deed that omitted the Shabalalas as the new owners
He also amended a host of documents that enabled him and his family to move into the main homestead of Kuick Vlei farm and benefit from agricultural development grants for livestock purchase, farm implements and livestock handling facilities.
He defrauded the state and the Shabalalas of more than R5.3million.
It took whistleblowers and a Carte Blanche exposé for Masoka to be brought to account this week - 10 years after he masterminded the theft, and 22 years after the Shabalala family lodged the original claim.
In convicting Masoka of fraud and theft, magistrate Judy Naidoo accepted the evidence presented by commercial crimes prosecutor Ranjeni Moodley. This included the testimony of a forensic investigator, Wayne Robertson, and 24 other witnesses, mostly Kuick Vlei farm dwellers and several department officials.
Masoka was previously a co-accused in another case alongside prominent Ladysmith businessman Roshan Sewpersadh and two former colleagues Promise Phumzile Makhanya and Sibusiso Chapi.
Prosecutor Ranjeni Govender led evidence in the Durban Commercial Crimes Court.
At least six other farms in the district were bought by the department for R36m.
Court papers showed that the beneficiary of their final transfer was an entity known as Abrina 6822, whose sole shareholder, the Roscoe Family Trust, was controlled by Sewpersad.
Investigations into the alleged scam revealed the lists of “beneficiaries” had been fabricated with most of them having no idea someone had sourced state funding using their names and identities.
In 2013, charges against all the accused were provisionally withdrawn pending further investigation.
The question now arising is how many other similar cases have been masterminded by corrupt land reform officials operating in cahoots with connected businessmen and high-ranking government officials? A source close to the investigations into the Kuick Vlei case, said the case revealed how easy it was for corrupt officials to take advantage of the fact that most labour tenants were illiterate.
He said the fact it had taken several years of investigation, at considerable cost to taxpayers, to convict Masoka spoke volumes about the department’s ability to root
out corruption.
This very issue is likely to dominate the ongoing parliamentary debates about the ANC’s plans to fast track land reform through “expropriation without compensation”.
Exactly how this mechanism will work has not yet been elaborated on.
As it stands, the law (section 25 of the constitution) already provides for expropriation. It simply requires that compensation be just and equitable.
Also, no compensation is required in instances where land has been acquired unlawfully and no improvements have been made to the property.
Although Kuick Vlei farm is now owned by the state, former labour tenants Wilson Shabalala and his family are still awaiting the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform to transfer ownership and provide much-needed assistance to farm the land as they had expected when their land claim was
finalised 10 years ago. PICTURES: BONGANI MBATHA/ AFRICA NEWS AGENCY (ANA)
Since as far back as 2014, former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke has consistently pointed out that government has had this constitutional mechanism to explore expropriation for public purpose, but has never used it.
“The property clause does not carry the phrase ‘willing buyer, willing seller’, which is often blamed for an inadequate resolution of the land question,” said Justice Moseneke. “The state’s power to expropriate does not depend on the willingness of the landowner.”
In a nutshell, Justice Moseneke’s concern is not about the absence of effective mechanisms to ensure successful land redistribution and land reform, but what’s actually been happening on the ground.
As the Kuick Vlei case illustrates it is too easy for farms acquired by the state to end up in the wrong hands. It’s clearly time for a full audit of who exactly owns farms that the government has bought for the purpose of land redistribution and land reform.