100 new land claims received since last week

09 July 2014 - 17:07 By Sapa
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Government has received roughly 100 new land claims since last week when the process reopened for five years, chief land claims commissioner Nomfundo Gobodo said.

"We have received about a hundred claims, from all the provinces," she told Sapa on the sidelines of briefing in Parliament.

"We are expecting more, depending on the number of people who were left out. But there was always this perception that they would flood our offices, and we have not seen that."

Gobodo added that so far the claims have been lodged at the department's provincial offices in cities, and said officials planned to take the process to rural areas.

It was starting an awareness campaign with the help of community radio stations and non-governmental organisations.

The lodgement of land claims reopened on June 30 when President Jacob Zuma signed the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act into law. It allows those who missed the December 31, 1998 deadline to bring claims until mid-2019.

According to Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti, there are 8471 claims lodged before the 1998 cut-off period that had not yet been settled or resolved.

These would be prioritised, and processed simultaneously with the new ones. Nkwinti said he expected the new land claim process to proceed faster than the first four-year drive because claims would be filed electronically.

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