Cape Town - The Knoflokskraal land grabs have cost the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (Deff) in excess of R3 million in legal and sheriff fees so far, Minister Barbara Creecy told MPs.
The invasions took place during the hard Covid-19 lockdowns in Grabouw. The department obtained a court order to stave off further land invasions, but the land grabs persisted last year.
Land-related protests on the Knoflokskraal plantation are frequent and the situation is so volatile that provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile and senior officers held weekly meetings to discuss strategies late last year, according to a presentation to MPs last year.
In a parliamentary reply to DA MP Cheryl Phillips, Creecy said the total amount spent on costs related to the sheriff is R2.5 million, while R537 000 was spent on legal fees.
Phillips had asked whether security companies fulfilled a specified brief to guard the land, why they were paid, and the total amount of legal fees relating to Knoflokskraal.
Creecy said security companies were paid for access control so that the structures in the plantation did not increase; that all half-done structures be demolished and for day and night patrols on weekends and public holidays.
Creecy said: “They were paid as they controlled access to the premises for the period, in compliance with the implementation of the containment order at Knoflokskraal. The total amount spent on “sheriff costs is R 2 543 000 (and) the total amount spent on legal fees is R537 240.”
In a parliamentary meeting last year, Patekile told MPs that police had made several interventions, such as deploying visible policing daily; stakeholder meetings; 15 operations where police assisted the sheriff on the land and weekly provincial meetings.
In that meeting Patekile said only four cases of trespassing were registered and police made no arrests. He said this was because witnesses were reluctant to come forward and police didn’t know who owns the land.
The Cape Argus recently reported that Creecy had pulled the plug on a planned multimillion-rand forestry project on the land.