South Africa

South Africa, Maverick News

Tongaat Hulett granted interdict in battle over disputed land amid community claims and tensions

Sites on the disputed land where houses have either been built or are in different stages of construction. (Photo: Chris Makhaye)

By Chris Makhaye

12 Feb 2025

Tongaat Hulett Ltd has secured an interim court order to stop land invasions in the Waterloo sugar plantation area in KZN.

Sugar giant Tongaat Hulett Ltd has been granted an interim urgent order preventing a local inkosi (chief), Mqoqi Ngcobo of the AmaQadi clan, and other land invaders in the Waterloo sugar plantation area from continuing to carve, distribute and build on the disputed land. The interim order was granted on Monday 10 February 2025, and the matter was adjourned to Monday 3 March 2025 for further hearing.

Tongaat Hulett Ltd is considered a significant player in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, primarily operating within South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Eswatini, with a large land footprint managing sugar production across these countries but has no significant presence beyond the SADC region.

Some of its prime land is located north of Durban, including the leafy uMhlanga and Balito suburbs, which puts it on a collision course with Inkosi Mqoqi Ngcobo and his AmaQadi clan, which claims all these areas as its tribal land.

Justice Mokgere Masipa heard arguments from both the applicants and the respondents late on Monday afternoon, however the respondents’ lawyers failed to convince Justice Masipa to strike the matter off the court roll. She said it did not meet the urgency benchmark and therefore could be dealt with in the normal eviction court order application proceedings.

The interim order prevents Tongaat Hulett or its appointed security operators from interfering with those who are living in houses already built on the disputed land, but prevents anyone, including the current occupiers, from further construction until the court has made a final ruling on the matter.

The court was packed with people wearing uMkhonto Wesizwe party colours and izinduna who came in support of Inkosi Ngcobo and the court-listed alleged land invaders. The applicant’s lawyers argued that their client’s land was brazenly carved and distributed, and that homes were being built on the land without the applicant’s consent. The applicant is asking the court to grant eviction orders against the invaders.

Failed negotiations

“Tongaat Hulett Limited was granted an interim interdict yesterday (10 February) at the High Court of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Local Division after months of failed negotiations with members of the Ngcobo/AmaQadi community regarding their illegal construction of structures on land owned by the company.

“The company has made every effort to resolve the issue through proactive engagement, including multiple meetings and collaboration with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to facilitate discussions between the company and the respondents. These efforts aimed to clarify land ownership and address any related concerns. Tongaat Hulett also commissioned two land surveyors to confirm the land boundaries,” said Heidi Geldenhuys, Hulett’s spokesperson.

She added: “The situation has been further complicated by the ongoing construction of what seems to be rental structures, which conflict with the undertakings made by community members in November 2024 to stop all building. As a result, the company found it necessary to seek an interdict from the court. The urgency of the matter stems from ongoing unlawful construction of structures on Tongaat Hulett-owned land despite repeated promises by community members to cease building. This attempted invasion not only threatens the company’s property, but also endangers the safety of its contractors and employees.”

Advocate Mohamed Koroma, who represented Inkosi Ngcobo and some of the respondents, told Daily Maverick that although they were not happy with the granting of the interim interdict, they were satisfied that Hulett did not get the eviction order it initially sought, and due to the amended interdict the company or its security officers would not interfere or intimidate those who were already living in the incomplete homes.

‘Not urgent’

“We will argue in the next court hearing that this matter is not urgent and that our clients contend that the land in question is communal or tribal property and therefore does not belong to Hulett,” Koroma said.

Inkosi Ngcobo and other members of the AmaQadi community responded, in court papers, saying that since they regarded the land in question as their ancestral land, they saw nothing wrong with Inkosi Ngcobo and his izinduna distributing it to his subjects or any other persons chosen by them.

Induna Msomi said the matter arose out of Inkosi Ngcobo deciding to allocate land adjacent to Tongaat Hulett’s sugar plantation.

A newly tarred road built on the disputed land. Land owners claim that the government has not been coming to their aid in fighting off land invaders. Rather, its entities, especially the eThekwini Municipality, have been very quick to install roads, electricity and water on the disputed land, thus encouraging more invasions. (Photo: Chris Makhaye)

“This was a bush where a number of people had been found killed, and there are many cases opened at the Verulam Police Station. People were also raped and robbed there. Inkosi decided to allocate this bush area to the people to prevent criminal activities like the killing and robbing of people from occurring in the area. We have been in talks with Hulett to discuss this matter, and today (10 February) there was a scheduled meeting, but they rushed to take us to court,” he said, reiterating that they believed that the disputed land, as well as many parts north of Durban, belonged to the AmaQadi Tribal Authority, of which Inkosi Ngcobo was the head.

Some of the MK party supporters who were in court on Monday said they felt the need to support Inkosi Ngcobo and other respondents because the party supported the fight for land for landless majority black people. But they declined to comment on record, referring the matter to party’s spokesperson, Nhlamulo Ndhlela, who was not available for comment at the time of publication.

Other land disputes in the area

This dispute is the latest in the area and one of a few that has landed up in the courts. Others occur regularly, with little or no intervention from the police and or other government entities.

The farms being carved up, sold, cleared and built on are in Tea Estate near Inanda, eTafuleni, Hazelmere, Redcliffe, New Glasgow, eMdloti and Nonoti, as well as on the outskirts of Verulam and Ottawa.

Here, landowners said that what they described as a land grab began in 2016 and had been continuing unabated since, despite several court interdicts to stop Ngcobo, his headmen and the invaders from carving up plots of land and selling them to the new buyers.

Modus operandi

The only legal avenues of acquiring land in South Africa are buying it through the normal channel of willing buyer willing seller, or obtaining it through the lengthy and convoluted process of lodging a claim through the Land Claim Commission, whereupon if the claim is verified and legitimised the government purchases it and then distributes it to claimants.

In a statement responding to a recent media query from Daily Maverick, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development said: “We are not aware of a land claim that was lodged by Inkosi Ngcobo, but what will be helpful is to get a reference number from Inkosi in the event that he alleges that he has an unresolved land claim that is currently being processed. In the absence of that, our position is that we are not aware of the alleged land claim. The department is not involved in any negotiations to acquire land in order to settle a land claim by Inkosi Ngcobo.”

Other Court Orders

On 16 September 2022 the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court in a matter of 11 Indian small-scale farmland owners belonging to the Tea Estate Farming Association vs Inkosi Ngcobo and others, Judge Elijah Nkosi awarded a final interdict stopping Ngcobo and his izinduna from inciting people to “invade, carve, fence, and erect structures such as houses on the land”.

The Indian farmer land owners contended in their court papers that people occupying their land had claimed to have paid Ngcobo and his izinduna anything between R20,000 and R50,000.

One of the 11 litigants, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution and violence, told Daily Maverick last week that before they’d approached the court, he went to do an inspection on his land that was being invaded.

“I was abducted with my relative and taken to the tribal court where Inkosi Ngcobo and his izinduna held court and threatened us with violence. I wondered how this could be because this land has been in our family for generations and we have been paying taxes and levies for it,” he said.

Sites on the disputed land where houses have either been built or are in different stages of construction. (Photo: Chris Makhaye)

“It is clear from what we have witnessed over the past few years that a race card is being played on us as Indian land owners. Many of the land owners have title deeds to their properties but still there is land invasion. Worse still, the eThekwini Municipality has been constructing roads, putting in electricity and water for homes built on this disputed land,” he said.

Willie Naicker, the chairperson of the Umdloti Farmers’ Association and whose family also owns some of the land under invasion, told Daily Maverick that land owners were in dire straits.

“Some of the families have been threatened with violence and others have been attacked physically. Some families are deciding to sell, get whatever little they can and move away.

“It’s a pity because we have been trying to negotiate with the government and nothing is working out. In the meantime land invasion and building continue. There are many people who are prepared to negotiate a settlement. This is because this is our land, but I do not see so many beautiful homes being demolished.”

Construction under way

When Daily Maverick visited the area last week, construction was under way in some of the houses. There were also housing units similar to RDP houses being built in some of the disputed areas.

Anand Munsamy, the former owner of the land where the RDP-like houses are being constructed, said his family was forced to sell the five-hectare former small-scale sugarcane farm last year.

“I cannot say how much we sold it for because that may or may not prejudice other property owners. We felt that the invasion had been going on for years and when the offer came our way, we took it,” Munsamy said.

Attempts to get comment from Inkosi Ngcobo in response to the allegations made by the Indian land owners were unsuccessful. One of his izinduna, who was present at the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court in Durban on Monday, referred all queries to Ngcobo’s legal counsel, Bheki Myeni.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E50c8895BHM

“We are adamant that Inkosi Ngcobo has officially lodged a claim for the disputed land, and the processes to this effect are under way. I have sat in at some of the meetings between Inkosi Ngcobo and the AmaQadi Tribal Council, government officials and the owners, and what has transpired in these meetings is that the land owners have been asked to produce title deeds to the land so that it can be estimated what can be done about these because our client believes that the dispute land is their ancestral land and has proof to this effect. The landowners have failed to produce these documents. My client has a strong suspicion that these owners perhaps made use of vacant land to plant sugarcane, and now they are claiming it as landowners when they cannot produce proof,” Myeni said.

When Daily Maverick visited the area, some people were actively selling property. An informal land sale agent, who said his name was Thulani, claimed to have had the authority from Inkosi Ngcobo and his izinduna to sell property on some of the disputed land.

You can choose any vacant land you want and we can speak about the price

“You can choose any vacant land you want and we can speak about the price,” he said. “For a 25mx25m plot you can pay R60,000 in cash, and for a 50mx50m plot you pay between R95,000 and R100,000 depending on whether the land is straight or skewed.”

Ndabezinhle Sibiya, the spokesperson for the MEC of Transport and Human Settlements, said his department was planning to build houses on land adjacent to the disputed land.

“For now we can confirm that as the department we are not constructing houses in the area, but we made available a small portion of land in this area to the eThekwini Municipality. Construction in eTafuleni is at the planning stage. It is about 212 (RDP housing) units for households displaced by the Inanda Dam,” Sibiya said.

EFF Councillor Themba Mvubu, eThekwini Municipality’s chairperson of the housing sub-committee, said the units to be built by the city would be in an area adjacent to the disputed land, but this was at the planning stage at the moment.

“We cannot say when these units will be built but we can assure that they will not be built on the disputed land because as the City we respect the court orders and decisions, and we abide by them.” DM

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