Department’s Plan for Labour Tenants’ Land Claims finally received

On the 4 August, the LRC received the Depart­ment of Rural Devel­op­ment and Land Reform’s report­ing affi­davit and the action plan made in response to the court order handed down on the 9 June 2015 in the Land Claims Court in Johan­nes­burg. The LRC wel­comes these impor­tant doc­u­ments but expresses con­cern over cer­tain out­stand­ing issues. 

The court order com­pelled the Depart­ment to file fur­ther reports, each con­tain­ing an action plan, on the progress being made with the imple­men­ta­tion of Land Reform (Labour Ten­ants) Act. 

This comes after the LRC, on behalf of Asso­ci­a­tion for Rural Advance­ment (AFRA), took the Depart­ment to court after fail­ing to process thou­sands of land claims made by labour ten­ants under the Act. A set­tle­ment was reached in which the Depart­ment agreed to fur­nish the courts with sta­tus quo reports and plans on how it would process these land claims. 

The Department’s report­ing affi­davit and the action plan, dated 30 July 2015, is wel­comed as an impor­tant step in the process of finally address­ing the con­cerns of labour ten­ants. The labour ten­ants, AFRA and the Legal Resources Cen­tre appre­ci­ate the Department’s can­dour in the report and its com­mit­ment to assist labour ten­ants. 

How­ever, there are areas of con­cern that must be com­mented on. 

Follow the link below to read the full lrc press release: