![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WilliamMoagi-copy.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWilliam Moagi<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moagi\u2019s homeland is Rhenosterspruit, in the heart of the Cradle of Humankind, where homo naledi, the skull of mankind\u2019s oldest common ancestor, was unearthed in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just like homo naledi, the cradle has held the bones of Moagi\u2019s ancestors for ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So in November 2017, Moagi, now a landowner, did what he felt he must to protect what had been owed and denied to his family for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He ordered the demolishment and eviction of 600 shacks on the farm Portion 7 Rhenosterspruit JQ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moagi is the chairman of the Cradle Communal Property Association (CCPA) which holds the title deed to Portion 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CCPA have been locked in a dispute for years with former allies David Mkhonza and Farayi Moyo who have formed a breakaway organisation, the Cradle Community Trust (CCT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the heart of the dispute is the right to own and occupy Portion 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That right is based on the terms of a negotiated settlement with Wraypex that provided for the local landless people to benefit from the construction of South Africa\u2019s most expensive estate, Blair Atholl, which started development in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The terms of the settlement were captured in an official document called an environmental authorisation and issued by the Gauteng department of agriculture and rural development (GDARD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The document was ambiguously worded and poorly enforced, leading to a dispute which split the CCPA leadership into factions which both claim to represent the true beneficiaries of Portion 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make matters worse, after over a decade, the true futility of their conflict is coming to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GDARD has belatedly confirmed that Portion 7 is a white elephant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blair Atholl Golf Estate<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its foundations are made of the same dolomitic earth that has been ideal for preserving the fossils of the cradle, but dangerous for human habitation. The land threatens to open and swallow all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, those who believe they belong on Portion 7 fight on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But to understand that, we need to go back to the early 2000s and the way in which an act of generosity was mishandled and betrayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople can talk about this land like it\u2019s a donation, but to us it is so much more,\u201d says William Moagi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s always been ours. Our mothers and fathers worked and watered this land with their blood, sweat and tears.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As chairman of the CCPA, the \u201cus\u201d Moagi represents are 114 families who once worked for the Zingel family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the 1970s until 2000, the Zingel family owned, lived and ran their businesses from the farms surrounding Portion 7, which they also owned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are a family of fourth generation agricultural geneticists, whose Mayford Seed Factory was founded in the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zingels owned a commercial farm, seed factory and laboratory next door and smaller plots nearby where some of their large staff compliment lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi says he grew up with Rodney Zingel, who became head geneticist in the lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy grandmother carried Rodney on her back. My grandfather spent his entire life [looking after] 1000 head of sheep. Rodney built him a home at the top of the farm where he stayed with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n About seventy employees bred seeds in the laboratory, grew and sold vegetables, reared livestock and cared for the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThose of us who had a bit of education were trained to work in the lab with the seeds,\u201d says Moagi. \u201cI learnt to drive as a teenager and worked security on the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2000 when Rodney was approaching retirement from the Mayford factory, already under new ownership as Sakata Mayford, he approached his staff with a proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At that time the Zingel workers\u2019 houses were scattered between the family\u2019s property in the area. Some lived on Portion 7 while Moagi and about seven other households lived on another smallholding a few hundred metres away called 134 Lindley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zingel wished to donate Portion 134 Lindley, the ten hectare plot where Moagi was already living, to 114 families he felt he owed his own family\u2019s success to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zingel and his employees began meeting regularly to plan out their vision for the development of a close-knit community that would work together to grow food and sustain themselves, as they had on the Zingel property over decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meeting minutes from February and March 2003 show the group known as the \u201cSakata Beneficiaries\u201d <\/span>also met twice with officials from the Mogale City municipality and the national department of land affairs to identify the terms under which each department would be involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Zingel, the department of rural development and land affairs instructed the Sakata families to draw up a verifiable list of beneficiaries with identity numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe list comprised of employees, ex-employees, friends and small group of friends to the community,\u201d Zingel told amaBhungane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was about 113 people and their families, and the department of land affairs was going to review the list of beneficiaries because non-citizens and minors would be disqualified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zingel says Land Affairs also instructed the Sakata group to nominate a chairman and committee to act on their behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n William Moagi was voted as chairman and four other people formed his executive. When that organisation came to be called <\/span>the CCPA is under dispute, but CIPRO records show a section 21 company called First Reddy Development 662 was officially renamed the Cradle Community Property Association in July 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi says that they registered the CCPA as a non-profit company, with the executive listed as directors, for fundraising purposes only. Otherwise it functioned as a traditional CPA, responsible for coordinating the project with the relevant government departments as well as representing the beneficiaries in any other official engagements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of the Communal Property Associations Act of 1996, CPAs are \u201cjuristic [entities]\u201d designed to allow disadvantaged communities to acquire, hold and manage property on \u201ca basis agreed to by members of a community in terms of a written constitution\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Act also requires all CPAs to registered and monitored by the national department of land affairs. The CCPA, a nonprofit company, was not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A signed, undated offer and acceptance of donation between \u201cRodney Trent William Zingel and the Sakata Community\u201d specifies that ownership of the land would be held in common property but individual houses will be held by beneficiaries in the form of title deeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also specifies that property transfer costs would be borne by the land affairs department and onsite housing development and the provision of bulk services and infrastructure would be the responsibility of Land Affairs and the local municipality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Says Zingel: \u201cThe department of land affairs made it clear that together with the selected committee members, they would oversee the proceedings as the project was theirs. The proposal was in line with the government housing scheme and they were going to finance and build the houses with services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2004, Rodney says the HW Zingel Trust then put another one of their properties up for sale: Portion 7 Rhenosterspruit JQ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The establishment of the co-called Sakata community township (the Zingel project planned for 134 Lindley) was not the only new development taking place in Rhenosterspruit around 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nearby, property developer Wraypex began buying thirteen farms including some owned by golfing legend Gary Player. The plan was to develop an ultra-luxurious gated estate called Blair Atholl, complete with golf course designed by Player himself, a nature reserve, spa, equestrian centre and sports facilities for the exclusive use of residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today homes in Blair Atholl are listed for a median price of R14-million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the thirteen farms Wraypex purchased were commercial fruit, vegetable and poultry producers where the farm labourers lived with their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The families were evicted. Many of them, like Moagi\u2019s family, had been in the area for generations. One news report tells of at least 21 families left homeless after their houses were demolished on the farms. A photograph shows a group of people at a large gate, reported to be locked out from collecting their belongings on the property.<\/p>\n\n\n Under the Environmental Management Act, vulnerable people and ecosystems like those on the Blair Atholl farms are supposed to be protected by regulations governing companies seeking permission for development. These obligations are overseen by the national department of environmental affairs and its provincial offices, in this case the GDARD. Farayi Moyo<\/p>\n\n\n\n To receive authorisation for the development of Blair Atholl, Wraypex was compelled to appoint an environmental expert to conduct an assessment and develop an environmental management plan for the company to submit to GDARD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the banner of the CCPA Moagi plus two other community leaders \u2013 Farayi Moyo and David Mkhonza \u2013 negotiated with the chief executive of Wraypex, Robby Wray, over the socioeconomic aspects of the environmental management plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moyo was another Zingel employee and land beneficiary, who had been running a self-described \u201cinformal land rights group\u201d in the Cradle and nearby Lanseria. <\/span>He educated farm labourers and dwellers about their tenure rights and challenged farmers who abused them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mkhonza is from Hartbeeshoek, over the Magaliesburg mountains, where he had been involved with another CPA.<\/p>\n\n\n David Mkhonza<\/p>\n\n\n\n The positive environmental authorisation Gauteng issued to Wraypex on 14 June 2005 contained specific terms for offsetting the existing socioeconomic conditions in the cradle that would be exacerbated by the development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One requirement was for Wraypex to provide \u201csecurity of tenure\u201d for hundreds of families surrounding the development. There were several legs to this commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The agreement provided: \u201cWraypex have committed themselves\u2026 to provide for accommodation for all families currently residing on the site to remain on the site but in improved living conditions. Formalised, serviced accommodation will be provided.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wraypex further committed to purchase a neighbouring farm which would be transferred to the CCPA. Wraypex would fund and manage all zoning and environmental applications required in order for the beneficiaries to obtain and utilize the land purchased for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition Wraypex promised to move a school situated on the development site to a new location, donate R1-million annually to the school\u2019s fundraising efforts and establish a community centre on its premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wraypex also pledged to build a Gary Player golf academy for \u201cpreviously disadvantaged people of the area\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authorisation did not specify who exactly the families on the development site were, nor did it specify which families would \u201cremain on the Blair Atholl site\u201d and which would \u201cobtain and utilize\u201d the nearby farm transferred to the CCPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A month later GDARD issued an errata that differentiated between thirty families living on the actual site of Blair Atholl, and 250 families that would benefit from the purchase of the nearby farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The errata had introduced a new, unspecified and ambiguous group, \u201capproximately 250 families residing in the geographical area near the development site.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it conflated the interests of the broader affected community with those of the CCPA \u2014 <\/b>an organization representing a very specific, distinct group who was already working on their own development on the Zingel\u2019s 134 Lindley property nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Problematically, it designated the CCPA as the \u201crepresentative of all families living on the Blair Atholl site\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How? It began with one \u201cneat swap\u201d that ended with very messy consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wray, CEO of Wraypex, wanted 134 Lindley for access to build a road to the main gate of Blair Atholl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That land, already donated to the Sakata Families, was not for sale but Zingel says Wray approached him in 2004 with a purchase offer of R2-million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was meant to be a neat swap\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The donation agreement between Rodney Zingel and the CCPA had already been signed \u2014 <\/b>but the title deed was still in the name of the Zingel family trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMost of the farmworkers already lived on Portion 7, it was just a few of us on Lindley,\u201d says Moagi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So Zingel and the CCPA reached an agreement with Wrapyex. If the plan had succeeded, it would have solved multiple problems for the property developer and the beneficiaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of 134 Lindley, Portion 7 would become the new permanent donated home for the former Zingel farm workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was meant to be a neat swap,\u201d says Moagi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 165 hectares, Portion 7 is much bigger than the ten hectares Zingel donated to the Sakata families. Robby Wray planned to subdivide the land, give ten hectares to the CCPA and use the rest to satisfy the terms of the environmental management plan he submitted to GDARD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the development authorisation was issued a year later, it became clear that Portion 7 was the mentioned \u201cneighbouring farm\u201d that would offer security of tenure for the 250 affected families and where the school and community centre would be moved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (It is unclear where Wraypex planned to put the golf academy that never happened.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe people that Wraypex put on their land would have been our neighbours,\u201d says Moagi. \u201cWe would have lived together with a fence separating the portion that we own, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wraypex purchased all 165 hectares of Portion 7 for R2-million from the Zingel Trust, bundled with the 10 hectare Lindley farm into the deal for an extra R1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t exactly clear why Wraypex didn\u2019t purchase both properties at full price, Rodney Zingel explained it as, \u201csomething Robby said about saving money on taxes”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The purchase agreement between the Zingel Trust, Wraypex and the CCPA as a third party signatory was finalised on 1 October 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wraypex bound itself to subdivide Portion 7 to create an area set aside for the CCPA to be known as the \u201ccradle community portion\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wraypex would also transfer R1-million to them for the purpose of establishing infrastructure on that part of the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWraypex said that since they\u2019d be putting in lighting and roads right next door they\u2019d give us R1-million to help the Sakata people set up the same for ourselves,\u201d Moagi recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi\u2019s carefulness to insist on a fence, literal and proverbial, between the 114 Sakata families and the landless group referred to in the environmental authorisation gets at the heart of his dispute with his former allies Moyo and Mkhonza who now lead the breakaway CCT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi insists the CCPA was never meant to represent all families \u201cresiding in the geographical area of the Blair Atholl site\u201d and functioned exclusively for the interests of the Sakata families benefiting from the Zingel donation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of the close knit nature of the farming community, he and the Sakata beneficiaries had friends and family affected by the Blair Atholl evictions and the CCPA used its formalised status to represent them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is how he came together with Mkhonza and Moyo, who Moagi says took advantage of their affiliation to claim membership of the CCPA and use its name to push their interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMoyo and Mkhonza were up and down this area taking up causes for landless people. It was their operation. That\u2019s how they even came to be involved with Blair Atholl. Neither of them are from the Blair Atholl farms. Mkhonza is not from this area at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi says he allowed for Moyo and Mkhonza to negotiate as representatives as the CCPA in order to present a united front to Wray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a 2004 letter that bears a CCPA header and was circulated to Wraypex, the local municipality and community notice boards announced Mkhonza\u2019s election to serve on the CCPA committee. The notice is signed <\/span>by the \u201cCCPA Advisory Council\u201d which included Farayi Moyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still Moagi insists, \u201cMkhonza elected himself as acting secretary. It\u2019s a title he gave himself so he could get to Robby.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were never part of the affected Blair Atholl families, and we had no problem sharing land, but my loyalty was always to my Sakata community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time Blair Atholl opened in 2007 Portion 7 still sat empty.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The environmental authorisation also specified that Portion 7 be developed concurrently with the Blair Atholl site so that the community housed there could benefit from being \u201cintegrated\u201d with Blair Atholl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To that effect Wraypex was compelled by GDARD to provide the department with a detailed timeline for the development of Portion 7, as well as \u201can indication of the level of services and top structures to be provided for the beneficiaries and time lines linked to this\u201d and \u201ca plan for integration of the two developments\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But by the time Blair Atholl opened in 2007 Portion 7 still sat empty. No housing, no community centre or golf academy, and the school was moved to another site nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi says Wray informed him that he was unable to subdivide Portion 7 to separate the part allocated to the Zingel beneficiaries, \u201cbecause it\u2019s in the Cradle\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Portion 7 is classified as a low density development within the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where special land use permissions apply. (Land affairs and Mogale City authorities were unable to explain to amaBhungane why they did not anticipate this problem).<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 2007 land affairs and Mogale City had also not progressed in their plans to help the CCPA establish a serviced township on the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi said: \u201cWe were told that the department of education had assessed that Portion 7 was unsuitable for a school. So it was moved to another farm and the teachers\u2019 families were housed there. Just inside the gate of Blair Atholl, Wraypex built housing for all of the families who had been living inside the site.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so Portion 7 sat largely empty for years, except for a few old Zingel employees who had lived there for a long time, and Moyo and Mkhonza who moved into two old houses on the property in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moagi insists that the plot sat empty because all families directly affected by the Blair Atholl development were rehoused inside Blair Atholl and near the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He alleges that the \u201c250 families residing in the geographical area\u201d of Blair Atholl refer to an informal settlement much nearer to Blair Atholl called Malatji, where the residents declined to be rehoused on Portion 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/BlairAthollGolfEstate.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe vision<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
A new neighbour muddies the waters<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nA swap that unraveled<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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