Category

Farm evictions

Feb 10
0

David Mabuza’s assurance was misleading

By | COVID 19, Eviction news, Eviction notice, Eviction orders, Expropriation Bill, Farm evictions

Four months after the Deputy President, David Mabuza, assured South Africans that no farmer will be evicted from their farms under the government’s land redistribution programme, Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) officials have been going around giving farmers one-week notices to vacate their farms.

On 22 October 2020, while answering questions in the National Assembly on the government’s planned 700 000 hectare land redistribution programme, Mabuza unambiguously stated that “…those people that are currently occupying those farms (identified for redistribution), I don’t think there is any intention to forcefully remove people at this point in time”.

Mabuza’s assurance was obviously misleading because Mr Ivan Cloete, a successful pig farmer at Colenso farm in the Western Cape was recently served with a 7-day notice to vacate his farm by officials from the DALRRD’s Western Cape provincial offices. The claim by these officials that Mr Cloete does not qualify to continue practising his farming activities at Colenso farm is nothing but naked abuse of power designed to intimidate him into giving up his livelihood. The DA will not stand by and allow the use of dubious eviction orders to harass and victimise a defenceless farmer.

The unfair treatment of Mr Cloete appears to confirm well-founded fears among farmers that 700 000 hectare scheme was now being used as a cover by DALRRD officials to intimidate them into vacating their farms. What makes this state-sanctioned intimidation worse is that the farms of some of the farmers facing this intimidation do not form part of the 700 000 hectare program.

The DA has always been on record arguing that the chaotic approach to land reform will open up avenues for corrupt abuse of the process and disrupt the agricultural sector:

On 10 March 2020, I warned members of the Portfolio Committee that, even without data or information on the monitoring and evaluation of land reform, Departmental officials had been issuing eviction notices haphazardly.

During a committee session on 01 December 2020, I told committee members that farmers in the Western Cape, Gauteng and Mpumalanga who have been on the land for years, had received letters to vacate in the past year.

It is ominous that while the controversial section 25 amendment is being debated in Parliament, farmers are already facing unrelenting pressure to vacate their farms from a Department that has gone rogue. Mabuza and his colleagues in government have an obligation to stop this reckless targeting of farmers before it inflicts irreparable damage to the agricultural sector and the economy.

Reprinted from Politics Web by Annette Steyn

Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a Cape Town law firm of specialist eviction lawyers, now operating in Johannesburg and Durban, helping both landlords and tenants with the eviction process. Contact one of our attorneys on 086 099 5146 or sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za if you need advice on the eviction process or if you are facing unlawful eviction.

Further reading:

Aug 06
0

Campaigns failing to stop farm evictions, say civil society organisations

By | COVID 19, Eviction news, Eviction notice, Eviction orders, Farm evictions

Webinar highlights plight of women on farms, calls on President to honour promise

Photo of a woman with a microphone

Johanna Fransman was evicted from Soetendal farm and relocated to New Rest. She says she lost her son in January this year in a shack fire at New Rest. “I feel very disappointed in the municipality who say that they cannot give us houses. Our children are anxious to be outside, and you cannot even walk outside at night. I don’t want to be where I live,” she said.

  • Women who live on farms raised their concerns at a webinar hosted by various civil society organisations, saying little has changed for them since apartheid officially ended.
  • Thousands of people are facing evictions in the Boland.
  • The organisations compiled a memorandum of demands sent to the Department of Agriculture, Land reform and Rural Development.

Members of the Women on Farms Project (WFP) say despite campaigns, talk of stopping evictions on farms and the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of people face becoming homeless as eviction orders continue to be approved by the courts.

The women raised their concerns at an online webinar on Tuesday, held in partnership with Mawubuye Land Rights Forum, the Social Justice Coalition, and the Legal Resources Centre.

They demanded that President Cyril Ramaphosa sign a moratorium on farm evictions, which they say he promised farmworkers in De Doorns and Paarl in 2014.

The WFP compiled a memorandum with a list of demands to put to the Department of Agriculture, Land reform and Rural Development. These include: the provision of land and decent housing for evicted farmworkers, ensuring that evictions are not granted if there is no land for alternative housing, and that government accelerate Land Expropriation without Compensation.

Director of WFP Colette Solomon said although the country celebrates 26 years of democracy, farmers “still have all the power, all the money and all the wealth”. She said, “Farmworkers, specifically women on farms, are becoming poorer. There are fewer jobs available; people are working for fewer hours; there’s more retrenchments and evictions.”

“There is more protection for farmworkers in terms of the laws but in terms of the structure of our society in rural areas, the structure is still the same [as during apartheid].

Co-director Carmen Louw said the evictions of farmworkers is a recurring issue despite the attempts of several organisations and campaigns to stop it.

“In the Drakenstein Municipality, there are more than a thousand cases on the current roll that are awaiting an outcome, and in most cases an eviction order will be granted. So, despite numerous and yearlong fights, many magistrates and land claims courts endorse these eviction orders.”

“We’ve got a supposedly superior Constitution but there’s basically no difference to the life that women in 1956 experienced in urban areas than what women on farms are still experiencing today,” said Louw.

The webinar was joined by several of the women from the Drakenstein area who were evicted from the Soetendal farm in 2015. They shared their experiences of being relocated by Drakenstein Municipality to an open plot in New Rest informal settlement. Diana Meyer of WFP and her family were among them. She said the eviction was a traumatic experience for the community.

“There weren’t proper doors or a proper foundation for the houses. Our things were thrown out and broken, while our children stood watching in confusion,” she said.

Meyers said her family do not feel safe where they now live and their living conditions are worse than when they lived on the farm.

“We feel so helpless. I just want the government to help us. We long for proper houses and for the government to give us a piece of land so that we can farm and have food to put on the table,” said Mayers.

Dawn Jacobs, of Drakenstein Civics, said that some farmers have forced workers to leave by cutting off the supply of water and electricity to their homes.

“When people are evicted and go to the municipality, they always say there’s no land available for houses and no land available for farmworkers. But the municipality is quick to approve land for private development,” said Jacobs.

“We don’t want to stay in shacks or townships. We want to remain on the farms,” she said.

The women also spoke of the violence used by law enforcement and the Red Ants when evicting farm workers, despite a moratorium on all evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Denia Jansen, of Mawubuye Land Rights Movement, said they had held several engagements with the Langeberg municipality regarding police brutality but to no avail.

“There’s no clear answer as to why they are using the Red Ants and law enforcement to evict people during this pandemic,” she said.

“Nothing will change until we stand united and unite our struggles regardless of which organisations we belong to. We all need to campaign for the same thing.”

Reprinted from GroundUp by

Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a firm of specialist eviction lawyers, based in Cape Town and now operating in Johannesburg and Durban, helping both landlords and tenants with the eviction process. Contact one of our attorneys on 086 099 5146 or sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za if you need advice on the eviction process or if you are facing unlawful eviction.

Further Reading:

Mar 15
0

Our farm had to evict people: It was lawful and justified

By | Eviction news, Farm evictions

Francina Petersen was dismissed for chronic absenteeism and offered alternative accommodation

Reprinted from GroundUp – 2020-03-12, by Lance Bouma

I was astonished to read in GroundUp that Francina Petersen, who had worked on our farm, Anura Vineyards, as a more absent then present bottle packer for five years and was dismissed for chronic absenteeism, “helped build the farm into the multi-million rand enterprise that it is today, boasting a winery, cheese factory, beer brewing, jam-making, wedding venue and restaurant”.

Eviction lawyers

The author, one of the owners of Anura Farm in the Cape Winelands, writes that a high profile eviction was done lawfully and justifiably. Photo supplied

I’m afraid Francina Petersen is not exactly truthful here. Perhaps because she is a tad jealous of her husband Chris who is the true entrepreneur of the Petersen family. Chris and Francina’s father, Marthinus Cupido, were arrested and charged with theft of diesel, which they were allegedly reselling on the farm.

I’ve no doubt that Barbara Maregele’s heartbreaking story of another victimised, vulnerable farm worker tossed on to the streets with her children would have even your most hardened reader reaching for the tissues. But they’ll be pleased to know that underneath Francina’s tearful exterior there is a steely resolve.

Francina told the Sheriff, in no uncertain terms, that she did not want to be taken to the alternative accommodation provided by me in La Rochelle but wanted to be dumped on the street outside our farm. This was so that she could get the maximum amount of media publicity. You have to admire her. She was prepared to camp outside, night after night with her husband and children for the greater good of the Petersen family.

But she was not alone. The community led by Carmen Louw of Women on Farms rallied around her “angered by yet another family on a farm left destitute by an eviction”. Some, of course, may argue that Chris Petersen’s substantially higher salary in the construction sector as an earthmoving operator doesn’t exactly qualify him as destitute.

Women on Farms’s director Colette Solomon, who is no slouch when it comes to exaggeration, claims that “they were concerned that the farm owners were trying to evict the rest of the Petersen’s family including her father and brother”.

In fact, Marthinus voluntarily moved off our farm two years ago and lives with his daughter in Klapmuts. He worked for Anura from 1989 to 2014 and on that basis Anura provided him with a house. His belongings remain undisturbed in the house as they did two years ago when he left the farm and moved to Klapmuts. Her brother, Jonathan, is still working on Anura.

In accordance with the rule of law in which — astonishingly, not only the farmworker but the farmer has rights — the Paarl Magistrates’ Court and Land Claims Court weighed the evidence and competing rights of the Petersens and the Boumas and granted an eviction order against the Petersens on 15 October 2019. This gave the Petersens just under four months, until 7 February 2020, to find alternative accommodation.

The Petersens, in accordance with their contractual agreement, which gave them a house as long as they were employed on the farm were evicted (after refusing to move out) to accommodate farm workers who are currently employed on the farm, and who are in need of housing.

Lance Bouma is one of the owners of Anura.

Chris Petersen denied the allegation of diesel theft.

Views expressed are not necessarily GroundUp’s.

Some links added by SD Law.

Eviction specialists

There are two sides to every story, as this article shows, and at SD Law we are expert eviction attorneys who weigh up all the facts, on both sides. We are eviction lawyers in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and we believe the landlord-tenant relationship should be built on trust. We act for both landlords and tenants and uphold the rights of each to a fair and satisfactory tenancy. If you  need help with an eviction, either as landlord or tenant, contact Simon at Cape Town Eviction Attorneys on 086 099 5146 or email sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za.

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