Land Restitution consultant Jan Wessels shares an “uber truth” in this powerful interview where he exposes one of the ugliest of the ANC’s dirty secrets. He claims the political party’s top dogs have long applied a deliberate strategy through the ‘land restitution’ process to capture rich mineral wealth on ancestral land. They use this to enrich politically connected elite through mining deals – while the tribes with historic rights live in poverty. Wessels warns: “In implementing this non-restitution process, the ANC is putting national security at risk. This non-restitution strategy will most certainly lead to a Zimbabwean outcome – communities are running out of patience.” He urges true beneficiaries to take “this long-standing corruption to court…..based on the legal facts, they will succeed in getting these unwanted ANC criminals out of their land and get back their mineral benefits”. He says the ANC is very aware once land restitution puts the land and minerals under the ownership of their historic owners, mining companies “will run to the tribes for mining agreements and would not need the politically connected BEE partnerships to get mining rights allocated”. – Chris Steyn
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Relevant timestamps from the interview
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 00:30 – Does the ANC have a strategy to circumvent the restitution process?
- 07:25 – An example of this process in practice
- 13:41 – Can they prove that they are the true owners of the ancestral land?
- 14:59 – Corruption of the bloodlines
- 19:05 – What hope id there for the true owners?
- 20:54 – What is the way forward for these clans?
- 21:32 – Is it possible to calcite there losses?
- 22:24 – Conclusion
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Highlights from the interview
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The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has used a deliberate strategy to “capture” the land restitution process in order to “capture” the minerals on ancestral land and enrich the ANC elite through mining activities while the true claimants live in poverty.
That is the charge from Land Restitution Consultant Jan Wessels who warns: “In implementing this non-restitution process, the ANC is putting the national security at risk, as this non-restitution strategy will most certainly lead to the Zimbabwean outcome as communities are running out of patience.”
In this interview with BizNews, he describes how, in order for the ANC “to ensure that this non-restitution strategy is going smoothly and to ensure lowest possible resistance from the tribal communities”, they implemented three steps “in perfecting” that strategy.
“In the first place, they captured the tribal authorities. They capture the tribal authorities so they can then dictate the capturing of the land restitution process with no resistance from the tribal authorities, which is actually fake authorities. And through capturing the restitution process, they capture the minerals. Now, one can argue actually that this constitutes State Capture Chapter 1. The one that we recently was exposed to, I think was a copy paste of the previous one. “
Moreover, “a very small percentage of land which is obtained to window dress this restitution process” is not given to the tribal communities, but to the ANC-orientated Communal Property Associations that are not linked to the customary law-like communities and structured in a way that even that land still stays under control of the ANC-orientated CPAs”.
Wessels says these so-called CPAs consist of members “randomly picked out of the communities with no link to the traditional leadership” – and these CPAs are then put in charge of small portions of land “to tick off the box to say that land claim has been settled” while the real claimants – the traditional communities – have not received any land from government.
“They use this supplementing land restitution puppet structure of the Communal Property Association to do some window dressing and the real restitution never happens.”
Wessels points out that the ANC is very aware that once land restitution puts the land and minerals under ownership of the tribes, “mining companies will run to the tribes for mining agreements and would not need the politically connected BEE partnerships to get mining rights allocated”.
“So restitution of land will take the ANC politicians who are currently in control and hugely benefiting from the minerals on the customary law rights land properties completely out of play.”
Wessels says there are tribes that can prove how the ANC government “hijacked” their traditional leadership by appointing persons of lower hierarchy in the bloodline to become paramount chiefs and in other leadership positions.
He advises them to find a legal team that will work on a contingency basis and go to court. “There are already constitutional and high court rulings… in different areas of the country where the rulings already created legal precedents…Based on the legal facts, they will succeed in getting these unwanted ANC criminals out of their land and mineral benefits.”
“It is just remarkable how long the ANC could fool their voters by pretending to be busy with the land restitution process, while in reality they are buying time to steal on a daily basis the poor community’s share of minerals which is intended by the constitution for them, he adds.
Read also:
- Land restitution fails as new owners duped into unfavourable arrangements – Chuck Stephens
- A gutsy Zulu woman leads the way on land restitution – Nonhlanhla Gumede
- Ramaphosa deserves support on land restitution issue
