Zabalaza Mshengu Dies At 104 – Landless

ZABALAZA MSHENGU HAS DIED – at 104 years old.

- Jonathan Erasmus

ZABALAZA MSHENGU HAS DIED – at 104 years old. As a labour tenant claimant in KwaZulu-Natal, his pursuit of his title deeds was text-book and should have been completed over a decade ago. But the fact that he died penniless and landless can be placed firmly at the feet of the ANC-controlled KZN Department of Rural Development and Agriculture.

Despite an explicit 2017 court order over and above two previous orders in 2011 and 2016 demanding that the matter be expedited, the department failed to finalise the matter. The reason put forward for the nearly 12 years of delays was that more families had laid claim to the land. However the department deliberately conflated the two issues; Mshengu’s claim was quite separate – and there is a clear record of this.

Mshengu lodged his claim for the 5 ha plot where had lived his entire life, before 31 March 2001, the cut-off date in line with the Land Reform (Land Tenants) Act. Only 22,000 such claims were lodged countrywide. A labour tenant is a farm worker who exchanged his labour on a commercial farm for the right to farm a portion of land for himself. In 2006 his claim was recognised, properly recorded and should have been a slam-dunk.

He was born on the same piece of land on 11 January 1914. His family has graves on the plot. Until 2006 the farm had been owned by at least two generations of the Hardman family for whom both Mshengu and his father worked until it was bought by Shockproof Investments 71 (Pty) Ltd, who in turn recognised and agreed to the claim.