WHEN King Goodwill Zwelithini announced recently that title deeds would be issued to households in rural KwaZulu-Natal, he omitted to say how this would fit in with the long-term lease agreements being issued by the Ingonyama Trust Board, of which he is the sole trustee.The trust presents the long-term residential lease agreements as the best land-tenure system for rural citizens in the province.However, the lease agreements, which are issued for a standard 40 years and subject to a 10% annual increase, essentially convert land ownership to tenancy. Over the full 40-year term, a residential lease costing an initial R3,000 a year would cost the tenant R1,466,758.73. This is for undeveloped land without even basic municipal services.Not only are these lease agreements a systematic deprivation of land rights, they are an unnecessary insult hurled at people who mostly have little to no education, are unemployed and are poor.To turn the insult into an injury, the lease agreement states t...
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