Public
Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille says government has
identified 20 land parcels in the Western Cape to be released for Human
Settlements purposes.
“The
Department of Public Works and Infrastructure has identified 20 land parcels in
the Western Cape province to be released for human settlements purposes.
“The
department has received requests from the Western Cape provincial department of
Human Settlements, also from various municipalities and the housing development
agency and they have supplied us with all the relevant supporting documents
aligned to the integrated development plan of the municipalities,” she said.
De Lille
said once this has taken place, the requests are subjected to the relevant
administrative purposes and once these processes support the release of the
properties for human settlement purposes, they will get Ministerial approval
and thereafter, it will get National Treasury endorsement before being transferred
to the relevant municipalities and government entities that requests the land.
“Currently,
we are working on 22 land parcels and once these properties have gone through
all the processes, we will release them as soon as possible,” she said.
One hundred
pieces of land released for restitution
The
Minister said, meanwhile, that over the past two months, the department has
released more than 100 pieces of land for land restitution and that the land
has all been handed over to the National Land Claims Commission.
“…I am
putting pressure on them to make sure that they hand over that land to the
beneficiaries. Some of our people are dying while waiting for land restitution
claims. So we are working very hard to complete all of those outstanding land
restitution claims.”
Update on
land released since 1999
De Lille
said, meanwhile, that the department has released 181 properties for land
restitution purposes since 1999, which amounts to just over 11 696
hectares of land
“We must
first understand that state land must be distributed by all three spheres of
government and state-owned land is being transferred by the Department of
Public Works to support the land reform programme because we are holding the
land just in custodianship on behalf of the public.
She said
the department has also availed 22 properties for human settlements purposes,
amounting to over 2 770 hectares of land that we have availed to the
Department of Human Settlements.
“And then we have also released 60 properties with an extent to 21 739 hectares to agricultural land reform under rural development from 2000 till to date for land redistribution purposes.” https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/government-release-20-land-parcels-housing-cape-town
