- Traditional council seeks eviction: A North West chief and council want to evict residents from land reserved for agricultural use by a community cooperative.
- Residents argue for recognition: Occupiers say they are local community members with nowhere else to go and were never consulted by the chief.
- Court postpones for clarity: The court delayed the case, asking the applicants to justify the eviction and prove it would be just and equitable.
On a dusty patch of land between the N8 and R372 roads in Taung, North West, people have built more than just homes. They’ve raised families, buried elders, and planted the roots of their future. But now, they face eviction, not from the state or a private developer, but from their own chief.
In a case that lays bare the tensions between traditional authority and grassroots belonging, Paramount Chief Tshepo Fredrick Mankuroane and the Baphuduhucwana Traditional Council are asking the High Court to evict several men and unnamed households for what they claim is unlawful occupation of land set aside for agricultural use.
The land in question, they say, belongs to the Rethuse Re Dire Primary Agricultural Cooperative, a community cooperative whose mission is to farm and protect the land. What the traditional council sees as “land grabs”, the residents describe as desperate attempts to secure shelter in a broken housing system.
‘We thought this land was for us’
One of the named respondents, Kgololo Kgamanyane, says the irony isn’t lost on him. “They call us unlawful occupiers, but I was born here. I graze my cattle here. This is the only land I’ve ever known,” he says.
He claims the land had long been communal grazing ground. Years ago, an agricultural extension officer lived in a now-abandoned house on the property. When the officer left, the land lay vacant. “It made sense to build where there was nothing happening,” Kgamanyane says.
But the chief sees it differently. In court papers, he argues that the land has always been for community farming and was allocated to the cooperative for that purpose. He insists he never gave permission for residential use.
“Land must be used wisely and lawfully,” the chief said in his affidavit. “Even children of the soil must obey lawful instruction.”
A cooperative’s history and heartbreak
The Rethuse Re Dire Cooperative isn’t a new player. Members say the group dates to the 1950s, though formal registration only came in 2000 and again in 2017. Today, 137 members are officially recognised, many of them elderly subsistence farmers.
The cooperative grows rotational crops that need eight years of undisturbed soil to flourish. It is a delicate ecosystem: disrupt it, and the harvest suffers. That’s why they turned to the court for help.
“We farm for the community. This isn’t commercial land. It’s meant to feed people,” says cooperative member Me Malebo Molefe, 66, who walks 2km daily to tend her plot. “But now fences are going up, people are digging trenches, they are turning our fields into streets.”
When the chief and community clash
The dispute has sparked deep divisions. It isn’t a case of outsiders vs locals. It’s locals vs locals, sons and daughters of the same soil pitted against one another.
Some respondents, including Eric Maruping, have since backtracked. In affidavits, they admitted the land allocations were unauthorised and sided with the chief. Others remain defiant.
“The chief never spoke to us,” says Mxolisi Gotyana, another respondent. “He went straight to court to evict us. How do you evict your own people without even a conversation?”
The traditional leadership denies that claim, but the court noted a lack of clarity in the process, particularly on whether the applicants had explored alternative housing for the households affected.
What the law says and doesn’t
Judge A Reddy postponed the matter until 11 September 2025, urging the applicants to clarify their locus standi, their right to bring the eviction application, and to show whether the eviction would be “just and equitable” under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act.
While the court agreed that the chief and traditional council had authority over the land, it also stressed the need for balance: protecting land rights without ignoring the realities of the people living on it.
“Justice must look at both sides,” the judge noted. “Especially when homes are at stake.”
“We have nowhere else to go”
For many of the families now caught in the legal crossfire, the fear is not legal, it’s personal. Eviction means more than losing a home. It means losing dignity, community, and belonging.
“There is no RDP housing in sight,” says Pholo Tumelo, a father of four. “We took electricity from the municipality, got stand numbers, paid for water tanks. If we were wrong, why didn’t anyone stop us then?”
The municipality’s involvement, including provision of services, has muddied the waters further. The respondents argue this implies tacit approval of their presence, while the chief argues that such services don’t legitimise unlawful occupation.
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