The government is opposing potentially landmark legal action from an elderly black farmer, who has gone to court to force the state to sell him the Limpopo farm it promised him 15 years ago.
David Rakgase, 77, has told the High Court in Pretoria that the state’s broken promises led to the farm in Nooitgedacht, Waterberg, being illegally occupied in May 2016 while he was waiting for an offer from the state.
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Tiso Black Star Journalist Karyn Maughan says this case exposes how there is a lack of coherent policy around land reform and the impact this has had, particularly on black farmers.
Who stood in line to be beneficiaries of the land redistribution for agricultural development programme and when that programme was sort of discontinued, these issues have somehow fallen in between the cracks.
— Karyn Maughan, Tiso Black Star Journalist
This story is so compelling because it is about the 77-year-old farmer called David Rakgase who has embodied the success story that is possible in terms of his farming.
— Karyn Maughan, Tiso Black Star Journalist
Listen below to hear Maughan tell Rakgase's story...