Mayibuye I Africa izwe lethu

MAYIBUYE I AFRIKA IZWE LETHU!

TAKING BACK OUR LAND

27 February 2018, the EFF tabled a motion of expropriation of land without compensation in parliament. There was unity among black political parties, especially ANC, EFF and IFP (singing from the same hymn book), and other parties of course, when they unanimously agreed on the land issue. It’s this issue of land ownership that puts us in this position we find ourselves in today. We might claim we own our houses and yet we are not allowed to use our homes for business purposes because our houses are not zoned for business. The shebeen permits that were granted to us permitting the sale of liquor have been declared illegal since the Gauteng provincial government didn’t follow the right procedures when issuing these permits, the document that we value so much.

Some refer to the shebeen permit as a form for an RDP house. We managed not only to fight poverty but address two of the three challenges that faces our community - unemployment and poverty. As liquor traders, we feel that we are under siege from our own government, when one considers apartheid laws that have since been enacted with the purpose of further expropriating our land and disadvantaging us from utilising our properties to our advantage. As I pen this article, our members are being served with court orders to stop trading from residential areas. Yet, we were issued with these permits, instead of shebeen licenses, because we were aware, including government in particular, that our by-laws don’t allow us to operate our businesses from our houses. These laws include, among others, The Glen Grey Act of 1894 (under Cecil John Rhodes), The Native Land Act of 1913, The Transvaal Asiatic Land Tenure of 1930, The Riotous Asemblies Act of 1930, The Asiatic Immigration Amendment Act of 1931, The Native Service Contracts Act of 1932, and many, many more. It’s our provincial government that chose to take these shortcuts instead of addressing the inequalities. Now that the high court has made a ruling on the issuing of liquor permits, it looks like we, shebeen permit holders, are left “home alone”. We are not sure if the government is celebrating the verdict of the court or if they are “with us”. Until they engage with us on this matter, we will remain speculative and no one should blame us for that. It’s an open secret that our government is bending backward to reduce as many liquor outlets as possible and yet they talk about “Vuka Uzenzele”. Ngizozenzela kanjani ungivalele ngaphandle. We are intending to take this matter of consent use and rezoning to our highest court in the land and we know we will come out victorious. We will participate in the proposed land summit by the governing party vigorously because without land we cannot take control of our properties. Expropriation of land without compensation will be “a cherry on top”.

SALTA President, Mish Hlophe