Category Archives: Emacambini

The National: ‘Memories of forced settlements’

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http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081220/BUSINESS/572436878/-1/ART

‘Memories of forced settlements’

* Last Updated: December 20. 2008 6:37PM UAE / December 20. 2008 2:37PM GMT

A Dubai developer intent on building the largest entertainment destination in Africa is coming up against a surprisingly formidable opponent in the form of about 3,000 Zulu farmers.

Ruwaad Holdings, a subsidiary of Dubai 9 Group, unveiled at Cityscape Dubai in October its plans to build the massive Amazulu World project in South Africa. Flanked by a Zulu king and the premier of the KwaZulu-Natal province, officials from the company said the project to be an entertainment and leisure mini-city would take 25 years and cover a 16,500-hectare piece of coast. In typical Dubai fashion, the multibillion-dirham project would include a theme park, golf courses and a giant shopping mall. A 106-metre-high statue of the Zulu warrior, King Shaka, would loom above the site.

Just two months later, the ambitious project has had its first reality check. About 3,000 people calling themselves the eMacambini Anti-Removal Committee – named after the tribe that lives on the land – poured out of the province and blocked a major motorway between Durban and Richard’s Bay with burning tyres. Police broke up the protest with rubber bullets and mace when the protesters started hurling rocks at passing cars, according to local newspapers. Ten protesters were arrested and another eight were injured, according to the organisers.

“It is becoming a very big issue,” says Zakhele Ndlovu, a political science professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. “This is becoming one of the biggest land claim issues [in the province] since 1994,” he says, referring to the year Nelson Mandela was elected in the first democratic election in the country.

Rival political parties, religious groups and officials are already taking sides. At the heart of the dispute is the fate of those living on the land.

According to a proposal submitted by Ruwaad to the Ingonyama Trust – a government entity that owns the land where the proposed Amazulu World would be built – the company would uproot about 8,500 households and move them to a smaller area nearby.

This is where the challenges for the company begin, says Chris Aitken, the secretariat of the trust. Not only does the local government and Ruwaad have to convince each of those households to sign on to the project before it can lease the land, but it also has to get permission from households near the development, and the eMacambini traditional council.

“The thought of lots of people being forced to relocate brings up memories of forced settlements under the apartheid government,” says Mr Aitken. “That’s why we require written evidence that these families are in favour of a project like this.”
Most of the families are “subsistence farmers” who make their living growing sugar cane and maize, and rearing cattle, says Mr Aitken. Several of these key groups have come out against the project.

Khayelihle Mathaba, the tribal chief or “inkosi” of the eMacambini traditional council, says he has met Ruwaad representatives four times, but is still against the project.
“We cannot accept it because they are going to move people,” he says. “The situation that they want is abnormal to us… We have livestock and farms and they want to move us to a smaller place? Where are we going to live? What will happen to our schools?”

Makhosonke Ntuli, the chairman of the eMacambini Anti-Removal Committee, says another problem is that Zulus do not allow graves to be relocated. “As Zulus, it is part of our culture to treat graves as sacred,” he says. “You don’t go around and move bodies of people who have already been buried there.”

Ruwaad officials say the claims are misconstrued, and it is now up to the South African government to handle the process of convincing the local groups that the project will be beneficial.

“This would improve the livelihood of these people,” says Hayan Merchant, the group chief executive of Ruwaad. “We have left the social engagement process to the government. A few members of the community are misconstruing this project. There is a long history of these people opposing economic development initiatives… This project will improve the whole region.”

Mr Merchant denies that 8,500 people will be relocated, saying the number affected is still being calculated.

“You have to appreciate the fact that these households on the site aren’t permanent households,” he says. “These households are very temporary in nature. It’s not clear how many are actually shacks that are unoccupied.”

The area to which the residents will be moved will be outfitted with new houses, water and power facilities, as well as education centres and health clinics, he says.

Still, despite earlier confident claims about the venture, the provincial government now appears more cautious. At Cityscape, the premier of the province, Sibusiso Ndebele, said the project would “make South Africa a sustainable destination of choice and an economic hub that will boost trade, tourism and development for the entire African continent”.

Earlier this month, Logan Maistry, a spokesman for Mr Ndebele, said from Kenya that no deal had been struck yet.

“At the end of the day, we will make sure there is proper consultation with all the stakeholders,” Mr Maistry said. “We will only do what is in the best interest of the people.”

The eMacambini Anti-Removal Committee, while opposing the Ruwaad venture, is backing a separate plan by a Sharjah-based group to create a smaller sports and leisure complex on the same piece of land. Sports Cities International, which has proposed the Macambini Sports City development, is a subsidiary of the Bukhatir Group in Sharjah.

This would be a US$5bn (Dh18.4bn) development on 500ha of the coastline, with high-rise buildings, a shopping mall, five-star hotel, golf course and a stadium.
The fact that a local group supports one project and not the other comes down to “politics”, says Protas Madlala, a political observer and the chief executive of a business development centre in the area. “It’s a dormant rural area, but people see the commercial potential of it. There is going to be a stalemate for now because the development has become politicised. They will continue arguing about how it will be used.”

The KwaZulu-Natal province has been receiving increased interest from developers recently because the King Shaka Airport in Durban is nearing completion, says Mark Taylor, the group chief executive of a development company called eLan. The airport will be able to handle four million people a year.

“Everybody is keeping their fingers crossed that Ruwaad is still going to come,” says Mr Taylor, calling the project a likely economic boon to the region. “It would be really unfortunate if they pulled out. Land claims are a big issue here. It can take years sometimes.”

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081206/BUSINESS/216408789/0/ART

Bradley Hope

* Last Updated: December 06. 2008 11:43PM UAE / December 6. 2008 7:43PM GMT

Amazulu World will transform 16,500 hectares in South Africa. Courtesy Ruwaad

ABU DHABI // A Dubai developer’s plan to build one of the largest leisure and shopping centres in Africa faces protests from a community group that blocked a major motorway last week to demand the local government back out of the agreement.

The project in question is Amazulu World, a multibillion dirham development by Dubai-based Ruwaad Holding that would transform a 16,500-hectare area near the Thukela River in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa into a major entertainment destination. It would have a theme park, golf courses and a giant shopping mall, as well as housing, health-care facilities, hotels and a 106-metre-high statue of a Zulu warrior king. South African media have estimated the cost of the 25-year project at more than 44 billion rand (Dh15.69bn).

The Ruwaad website said Amazulu World would be “the largest construction project ever undertaken in Africa” and would “provide a vibrant, harmonious and integrated ‘work-play-stay-live’ environment for local and international consumers, tenants and investors”. The company said it would create 200,000 jobs and a 40 per cent increase in tourism for the region.

That message has not resonated with farmers who live in the area, which is dotted with fishing huts, sugar cane fields, and small fruit and vegetable plots. Claiming the project would force them from their homeland, about 3,000 protesters blocked a motorway between Durban and Richard’s Bay with burning tyres and rocks on Thursday.

“We are very much concerned as locals about the manner in which this project is being pushed down our throats,” said Makhosonke Ntuli, the chairman of the eMacambini Anti-Removal Committee in South Africa. “We are not going to let them take away our land.”

Police broke up the march with rubber bullets and mace spray, according to accounts in several local newspapers. Mr Ntuli said today that 10 people were arrested and eight were injured.

The protest group had sent an ultimatum a week earlier to Sibusiso Ndebele, the premier of the province, demanding he rescind a memorandum of understanding he signed at Cityscape Dubai in October. At that event, Mr Ndebele was joined by Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, the king of the province. Both were guests of Ruwaad.

Hayan Merchant, the group chief executive of Ruwaad, said today that the project “is proceeding and has the blessings of the government”. Ruwaad is owned by the Dubai 9 Group, a holding company that also owns a signage company, the Emirates Neon Group, and a trading company, Toptronics.

“It is important to note that many people within the eMacambini community have already provided their support and understand all the project benefits,” he said. “However, it has also been observed that there are people in the eMacambini community who have indicated that they are very upset. We have brought this to the notice of the government who have informed us that they will continue to engage the community and continue to explain clearly all the benefits the project brings to the people of the community, to the KwaZulu-Natal province and to South Africa in general.”

At the centre of the dispute is a lack of clarity over the fates of the more than 10,000 families now living on the land.

Mr Ntuli said the community had been told that the entire population would be relocated to another area and have farmland reduced significantly.

“Nobody is talking to us, nobody is telling us exactly what is happening,” he said. “All we know is that they are preparing to take our land… If they succeed, our way of living will be completely destroyed.”

But Mr Merchant said this was incorrect. “There is no plan of removing the people and taking them to some area far away or to a different land,” he said, without giving details of the plan for residents.

Officials from the government of the KwaZulu-Natal province could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the premier said only that meetings were planned to deal with the situation.

The eMacambini Anti-Removal Committee, while opposing the Ruwaad venture, is backing a separate plan by a Sharjah-based group to create a sports and leisure complex in the same vicinity.

Sports Cities International, which has proposed the Macambini Sports City development, is a subsidiary of the Bukhatir Group in Sharjah.

This would be a US$5bn (Dh18.4bn) development on 500 hectares of the coastline with high-rise buildings, a shopping mall, a five-star hotel, a golf course and a stadium.

bhope@thenational.ae

eMacambini: Holding onto Paradise

(This is the full version of an article first published in The Weekender.)

Holding onto Paradise

The proposed development of eMacambini will destroy the life of a rich rural community as well as one of KZN’s most beautiful landscapes, writes Peter Machen

If you drive up the North Coast of KwaZulu Natal, you’ll see what was once little than a series of small seaside towns gradually morphing into something that increasingly looks like Jo’burg. Currently the twin epicentres of this urban spread are Umhlanga and Ballito, but the virus is spreading around the province. It has already filled the once semi-rural suburbs of Hillcrest and Waterfall with strip malls and gated communities and threatens to take up wherever there is a beautiful view waiting to be destroyed.

As pre-planned reality displaces the very notion of the organically evolved village and town, these new locations of middle class human habitation – be they Tuscan, Balinese or grossed-out modernism – have become the literal embodiment of the so-called “end of history”. It all fits perfectly. And inside the gated, monitored and regulated communities, that troublesome world out there that is so filled with violence and terror becomes no more than a channel on your television screen.

A little further up the coast, an hour and a half’s drive away from Durban, a local community is challenging this notion of the end of history. They are defending a richly lived rural life against a virus that is even more destructive to the natural cycles of the planet than the Jo’burg virus: the Dubai virus. And they are doing so against a movingly beautiful landscape in which they have lived for generations. A landscape in which there is little extreme poverty, no violence and no crime, and where community is more important than political affiliation.

I first read about the proposed development of the Amazulu World Theme Park in eMacambini in a local paper. The planned development by Dubai-based Ruwaad Holdings would occupy 16 500 hectares. In addition to the theme park, plans include a shopping mall eight times the size of Gateway, a game reserve, six golf courses, residential facilities, sports fields and a R200 million 100m high statue of Shaka Zulu at the Thukela river mouth.

In that article there was no mention of the eMacambini community that was going to be displaced, no mention of the 29 schools that would be demolished, the 300 churches, the three clinics, the brand new RDP houses. No mention of the ancestral graves that would be displaced. No mention of the absurdity of a beyond-vast Zulu theme park that would destroy everything that is Zulu about the area – which is to say everything.

The community of eMacambini also first heard about the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Province and Dubai-based Ruwaad Holding in the media. Many of them were aware of talks between their chief, the province and two companies in Dubai. But they had not been informed that their entire world had been promised away by provincial leadership. Only later did the provincial authorities, led by Director General Kwazi Mbanjwa, arrive in eMacambini. They were unaccompanied by provincial Premier S’bu Ndebele, who together with Mbanjwa, spearheaded negotiations on the project and threatened the community with land-expropriation.

Anti-Removal Committee member Khanyisani Shandu recalls the meeting. “It was a top-to-bottom kind of approach – ‘we as government are telling you that it is going to be like this’.” But he also says that the province has no legal power to take away the community’s land. “The community owns the land. That is indisputable”. And having examined the proposal, the people of eMacambini gave a clear rejection of the project. But that was the last time that the province – or anyone else from government – engaged with the community.

On 26 November, more than 5000 residents of eMacambini marched to the Mandeni Municipal Offices to deliver a petition to Ndebele and threatened to blockade the N2 and R102 if they did not receive a response from him. Ten days later, after having received no response, the community occupied the roads in protest and blockaded them with burning tires. And so, the story made the headlines for the first time. But predictably, there was little analysis of the events that had lead to the blockade.

The main response that the community received was the full fury of the local police force who attacked the protestors with tear gas and rubber bullets, and, later, allegedly forced their way into people’s house, arresting some people who had not even been at the blockade. During the course of the violence, at least 50 people were shot at, and 10 people hospitalised. The response from the ANC was to condemn the protests, adding that they were “unfortunate and unnecessary”. The Youth League meanwhile cast the IFP as political instigators in the events. For the eMacambini community, such responses are just further fodder for their disillusionment with the former liberation movement. The community seems to have been abandoned by the same forces that two decades ago would surely have fought side by side with them. Now the state sends it police force. But it sends no leadership, no-one to help sort out this dirty mess.
As they eMacambini Anti Removal Committee says, “There will be no compensation for what we will lose. There will just be a swop of land – a 500 hectare township for 16 500 hectares of beautiful and free land with rivers, valleys, pastures and beaches. In the townships there will be nothing for free. We will have to pay rates there. Here we are growing sugar cane, vegetables and fruit. Here we are raising cattles, sheep and goats. Here some of us survive on fishing.”

The community of eMacambini had defended their land for centuries, surviving the threats of colonialism and apartheid intact. “And now” says Shandu, “this so-called people’s government is happy to remove us. It’s really terrible to say the least.”

He also stresses that the community’s response to the development has got nothing to do with party politics. “We have all now came together in solidarity to say this is a pure theft of the land. The Premier has been saying that the people of eMacambini are rejecting development. But this is not development. It’s theft. It’s absolute theft.”

Meanwhile, Inkosi Khayelilhle Mathaba , the local traditional leader who was sidelined in negotiations with Ruwaad, points out that Ndebele will shortly be leaving his position as Premier to go into business. And he says that he has documents which state that Ndebele will personally get 10% of the shares in the development. Ndebele has also refused to give Mathaba and the community the MOU signed with Ruwaad Holdings.

Apart from the sheer ludicrousness of events, something else struck me about my visit to eMacambini. I have driven all over KZN and often speak to people in rural communities about their experiences. And the most consistent and resounding cry, from Umbumbulu to Bothas Hill is “we are poor”. By contrast, the residents of eMacambini say “we are rich. We are not poor. We are rich.” Those were almost the exact words used by nearly all the people I spoke to. And vitally they acknowledge that their access to land makes them rich. And they all realise that their removal from their land would send them straight into poverty.

They also acknowledge that they do not hold all development in contempt. They are in favour of development that would help them become richer – in the broadest meaning of the word – rather than poorer. But they do not want their landscape to change. There is a great African cliché in which the beauty of the African landscape exists in stark contrast to the poverty of its people. It is refreshing that this is not the case in eMacambini. Here people live functionally between modernity and tradition.

Those who talk of African solutions to African problems should come to eMacambini where land, grass-roots democracy and mutual respect have come together maintain a reality that is the very essence of sustainability. Of course, the African Solution seekers might not like what they see. They might object to the lack of development, to its distance from modernity. And they probably wouldn’t see the similarities between the community of eMacambini and the Tuscan farmers who are trying to maintain their traditional way of life, just as small rural communities all over the planet are doing the same, from Alaska to India.

Mathaba and the community of eMacambini will soon be taking the matter to the country’s courts. It seems likely that they will be successful in maintaining their land and their autonomy. And if they are, it will not simply be a victory for themselves and their land, but for all those South Africans who are in favour of self determination and sustainability over rampant development.

The Weekender: A forced removal to allow for ‘progress’

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(A longer version of this article is available here.)

http://www.businessday.co.za/weekender/article.aspx?ID=BD4A904592

Posted to the web on: 13 December 2008
A forced removal to allow for ‘progress’

The eMacambini community is challenging the government’s plan to build a theme park on its ancestral land, writes PETER MACHEN

THE north coast of KwaZulu- Natal is dotted with towns gradually filling up with strip malls and gated communities blocking the view . Tuscan, Balinese and modernist architecture have obliterated views of rolling green hills and blue sea.

A little further up the coast, a local community is challenging this notion of “the end of history”.

They are defending a richly lived rural life against the virus of development .

The people of eMacambini have lived surrounded by a beautiful landscape for generations — with little extreme poverty and crime, in a place where community is more important than political affiliation.

Now their way of life is being threatened by the proposed development of the Amazulu World Theme Park .

The planned R44m development by Dubai-based Ruwaad Holdings will occupy 16500ha.

In addition to the theme park, plans include the largest shopping centre in Africa, a game reserve, six golf courses, residential facilities, sports fields and a statue of Shaka at the Thukela river mouth.

To achieve this, the eMacambini community is going to be displaced, 29 schools will be demolished along with 300 churches, three clinics and brand-new RDP houses. Ancestral graves will also be displaced. And between 20000 and 50000 people will be forcibly removed.

It is absurd that a vast Zulu theme park will destroy everything that is Zulu about the area — everything currently there.

The community of eMacambini first heard about the memorandum of understanding signed between the provincial government and Ruwaad Holdings in the media. Many of them were aware of talks between their chief, the province and two companies in Dubai. But they had not been informed that their entire world had been promised away by the provincial leadership.

Only later did the provincial authorities, led by director- general Kwazi Mbanjwa and Premier S’bu Ndebele, break the news — and threaten the community with land expropriation.

Anti-Removal Committee member Khanyisani Shandu recalls the meeting. “It was a top-to-bottom kind of approach — ‘We as government are telling you that it is going to be like this.’”

He says the province has no legal power to take away the community’s land. “The community owns the land. That is indisputable.”

After examining the proposal, the people of eMacambini rejected the project in its entirety.

On November 26, more than 5000 residents of eMacambini marched to the Mandeni municipal offices to deliver a petition to Ndebele and threatened to blockade the N2 and R102 if they did not receive a response from him.

After waiting for 10 days for a response, members of the community blockaded the roads with burning tyres.

Their protest was met with the full fury of the local police force, who used tear gas and rubber bullets to end the blockade. Several people were arrested and 10 people were admitted to hospital.

The African National Congress condemned the protests as “unfortunate and unnecessary” and its youth league cast the Inkatha Freedom Party as “political instigators”.

For the eMacambini community, such responses are further fodder for its disillusionment with the former liberation movement.

As the eMacambini Anti-Removal Committee says in a statement: “There will be no compensation for what we will lose. There will just be a swap of land — a 500ha township for 16500ha of beautiful and free land with rivers, valleys, pastures and beaches.

“In the townships there will be nothing for free. We will have to pay rates there.

“Here we are growing sugar cane, vegetables and fruit.

“Here we are raising cattle, sheep and goats. Here some of us survive on fishing.”

The community of eMacambini defended its land for centuries, surviving the threats of colonialism and apartheid intact. “And now,” says Shandu, “this so-called people’s government is happy to remove us. It’s really terrible, to say the least.”

He stresses the community’s response to the development has nothing to do with party politics. “We have all now come together in solidarity to say this is pure theft of the land,” he says.

“The premier has been saying that the people of eMacambini are rejecting development. But this is not development. It’s theft. It’s absolute theft.”

Inkosi Khayelilhle Mathaba, the local traditional leader who was sidelined in negotiations with Ruwaad, says Ndebele will shortly be leaving his position as premier to go into business.

He claims he has documents which show that Ndebele will get 10% of the shares in the development. Ndebele has refused to give Mathaba and the community the memorandum of understanding signed with Ruwaad Holdings.

A spokesperson for Ndebele’s office says the consultation process with communities is ongoing. The premier’s office will not release details of the contract with the Dubai developers.

Unlike many other rural communities in SA, residents of eMacambini say, “We are rich. We are not poor. We are rich.” They acknowledge that their access to land makes them rich and their removal to a township will send them straight into poverty.

They say they do not hold all development in contempt. They are in favour of development that would help them become richer — in the broadest meaning of the word — rather than poorer. But they do not want their landscape to change.

Mathaba and the community of eMacambini will soon be taking the matter to the courts. They are determined to maintain their land and their autonomy in the face of plans to turn it into a playground for the rich.

And if they win, it will not simply be a victory for themselves and their land, but for all South Africans who are in favour of self-determination and sustainability over rampant development.

Mercury: Clan may go human rights route

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http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4752960

Clan may go human rights route

December 09, 2008 Edition 1

NATHI OLIFANT

THE community of Macambini, near Mandeni on the Zululand coast, will seek the intervention of the South African Human Rights Commission in its efforts to repel the construction of a multibillion-rand development on their land.

The community last week blockaded the N2 and R102 routes in protest, raising fears that holidaymakers might not be able to reach coastal destinations.

Khanyisani Shandu, of the Macambini Anti-Eviction Committee, said: “We want to avoid the confrontation we had with the police last week and will look at approaching the Human Rights Commission.”

He said they had resolved at a weekend meeting that although their attempts to reach the KZN government had drawn a blank, they would continue lobbying for their right to live on Macambini land.

Shandu said they had not ruled out challenging the KZN government and Dubai-based developer Ruwaad Holdings in court. He said that forcing the Macambini clan off the land would be a human rights violation and the clan would therefore seek the intervention of the commission.

Meanwhile, the ANC Youth League has accused local traditional leader Khayelihle Mathaba, of the IFP, of politicising the development issue.

The league’s Bheki Mtolo apparently attacked Mathaba for stalling the development, which could benefit many people. In response, the IFP’s Thulasizwe Buthelezi appealed to the youth league to “stop meddling in matters that are beyond their understanding”.

Buthelezi expressed support for Mathaba and the Macambini clan.

“What type of development project forces people off their land? The KZN premier, S’bu Ndebele, and his people must honour and respect the wishes of the Macambini community by withdrawing the proposed Ruwaad project,” he said.

Buthelezi was among Mathaba’s delegates who signed an agreement with a rival Dubai-based company for another development which would not require people to be moved

Isolezwe: Uthuthuva aMacambi evala u-N2

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http://www.isolezwe.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4747385

Uthuthuva aMacambi evala u-N2

December 05, 2008 Edition 1

Kwanele Ncalane

KUSUKE esinamathambo izolo amaphoyisa evulela ngezinhlamvu zenjoloba ejijimeza umphakathi waseMacambini obuvale umgwaqo onguthelawayeka u-N2 nobubhikishela uhlelo olwathulwa nguNdunankulu wesifundazwe, uMnuz Sbu Ndebele, lwenkampani yaseDubai, iRuwaad, lwentuthuko ka-R44 billion.

Amalungu omphakathi amaningi abelimele futhi enezibazi lapho eshaywe khona yizinhlamvu zenjoloba kanti amanye alale ebaliwe njengoba amaphoyisa eveze ukuthi bese kukhona ukucekelwa phansi kwempahla kanti nokuhlangana kwalo mphakathi bekungekho emthethweni.

Lo mphakathi ubulokhu ushaya iziqubulo ugxeka uNdebele.

Amaphoyisa abekanise ngobuningi bawo eqaphe isimo kanti ngokombiko wawo cishe ukuhilizisana phakathi kwawo nomphakathi kuthathe usuku lonke.

Okhulumela amaphoyisa esifundazwe, uSupt Vincent Mdunge, uthe abalelwa ku-1 500 amalungu omphakathi abehlangene.

“Bekushiswa amathayi kushaywa nezimoto kanti bese kucekelwa phansi nempahla. Amaphoyisa abanikile imizuzu ebakhuza ukuba behlakazeke kodwa kwaba nhlanga zimuka nomoya, manje amaphoyisa awakwazi ukubukela abantu bephula umthetho. Abe esethumela izinhlamvu zenjoloba,” kusho uMdunge.

Uqhube wathi abanayo imininingwane yabantu abalimalile kodwa wathi kungaba kuhle baphumele obala ukuze babhekane nengalo yomthetho ngoba lokho kusho ukuthi bangabasolwa emacaleni abucayi okucekelwa kwempahla nokuhlangana ngokungemthetho.

Ngokusho kukaMdunge bangaphezulu kwabathathu abantu ababoshiwe kodwa wathi basalinde umbiko ogcwele eziteshini zamaphoyisa ezakhele le ndawo.

UMnuz Thulani Mathonsi (57), uthe wazalelwa kule ndawo futhi ngeke ahambe ashiye amathuna akubo.

“Laba ababoshiwe abadedelwe ngoba bebelwela izwe labo. Sizoqhubeka nemibhikisho nokuvala imigwaqo uma uNdebele engaphenduli,” kusho yena.

UNksz Philile Mdletshe (20) obelimele nabanye ozakwabo ababili bagxeke amaphoyisa bathi abalandele abadubula ngisho sebesemakhaya.

Inkosi yakule ndawo, uKhayelihle Mathaba, ithe iphatheke kabi ngoba kufanele ngabe amaphoyisa yiwona avikela abantu kodwa yiwona abahlukumezayo.

“Awahlukile namaphoyisa angesikhathi sobandlululo. Sinxusa uNdunankulu wethu ukuba asivikele kule nkinga ngokuthi avele aluhoxise lolu hlelo ngoba vele ngeke luphumelele,” kusho uMathaba.

Ngokombiko waphambilini kwavela ukuthi lolu hlelo lwentuthuko luzodinga ama-hectare angu-16 500 kanti kungase kususwe imindeni ebalelwa ku-8 000 kuya ku-10 000.

Okhulumela uNdebele, uMnuz Logan Maistry, ukhiphe isitatimende lapho eveze khona ukuthi ngokuba-mbisana nomkhandlu wesifunda iLembe nowase-Mandeni bazoxhumana nabo bonke abathintekayo futhi bazolandela yonke imigudu yomthetho efanele.

Esitatimendeni esikhishwe yi-ANC, ikugxekile lokhu kubhikisha okuhambisana nodlame nokushaywa kwabantu bezimoto abangenacala.

“Uhulumeni akanazinhloso zokufaka ngenkani intuthuko emphakathini okubalwa nowaseMacambini futhi lokhu kubhikishela kwawo umhlaba bekungenasidingo,” kusho lesi sitatimende.

Iqhube ngokunxusa ukuba kugwenywe ukufakwa kwepolitiki kulolu daba kodwa kuxhunyanwe nabo bonke abathintekayo ngendlela eyakhayo.