23 October 2003

The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights in the Western Cape is to compensate families and former tenants in Paarl for tenancy rights lost in terms of the apartheid-era Group Areas Act.

The South African Press Association reported that Beverley Jansen, the regional land claims commissioner, will hand over more than R5-million to 54 families who lost their properties, and R912 000 to 40 former tenants, at a ceremony at Paulus Joubert Senior Secondary School on Saturday.

The families were forcibly removed after the areas were proclaimed white group areas in the 1950s.

The commission said the African inhabitants of Paarl were resettled at an emergency transit camp called Langabuya, and later, some were deported to the now-defunct homelands, while some went to live on farms in the area.

Others were moved to council houses in Mbekweni, a township in Paarl created in the early 1950s to accommodate the African population.

Sapa added that the 54 former property owners accepted the standard settlement offer of R40 000 a property and an extra R4 000 for properties bigger than 600mē. The tenancy claimants accepted the settlement offer of R22 800 from the state for lost tenancy rights.

According to Jansen, more than 1 600 claims in the Western Cape have been settled in the past few months.

SouthAfrica.info reporter

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	Department of Land Affairs