!Ama community marches on CPA offices in Northern Cape to protest against alleged corruption
Despite decades of legal battles to secure land and mining rights, the people of the Richtersveld remain bereft of a share in mining wealth under their ancestral lands. Now the community is angry at a new challenge over the Green Hydrogen and Boegoebaai mega-project that again threatens to run roughshod over their rights.
About 250 angry members of the Richtersveld community marched to the Richtersveld Sida !Hub Communal Property Association (CPA) office in Alexander Bay in the Northern Cape last week to protest against alleged corruption and malfeasance by the CPA leadership.
The protesters, who are members of the CPA, chanted “Waar is die Chair!? Waar is die Chair!? (Where is the Chair?)” after they heard that Chairperson Nicodemus Swartbooi and Vice Chair Abraham Cloete were not there to accept their memorandum of dispute.
The memorandum accused the committee of exploiting communal land and resources for personal gain over the community’s welfare. Specific reference was made to the unauthorised signing of an agreement, without the community’s consent, for the Boegoebaai mega-project with the Northern Cape Economic Development Association (NCEDA), SASOL, and Transnet.
The community also asserted its legal rights under the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act (IPILRA) to free, prior, and informed consent before any mining activities. It demanded fair elections for the CPA committee, proper management of community resources, and an end to unauthorised mining projects.
!Ama elder Andries Joseph, one of the community members responsible for drawing up the memorandum, said that Swartbooi and Cloete “had run away to Port Nolloth” because they were afraid to front up to the accusation that they had signed away the rights of the 3,500-strong community in favour of the Boegoebaai Green Hydrogen mega-project and port on hard-fought !Ama land, which is part of a plan for the multi-billion rand Namakwa Special Economic Zone.
Joseph alleged that the two officials were enriching themselves at the expense of the !Ama people of the Richtersveld, which is listed as a World Heritage Site that is rich in unique fauna and flora, as well as heavy minerals and diamonds.
The protest followed another march earlier this year when about 100 Richtersveld residents marched to the departments of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE); Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) and the Nama Khoi Municipality to demand their constitutional right to proper consultation over the Boegoebaai development.
In an article on Groundup, Ann Friedberg, a resident of Sanddrif, said that they wanted their land rights to be respected, but had been given very little information about the project.
“We don’t have a say about our land. But our ancestors’ bones lie there,” she said, referring to the plan to develop !Ama land at Boegoebaai that contained ancient !Ama burial sites, with deep ancestral significance to her people.
Ownership of the Boegoebaai land comes after the Richtersveld community endured a long and arduous legal battle that began with a 1998 land claim against state-owned diamond company Alexkor. The community eventually won the case against Alexkor and the Government in the Constitutional Court in 2003 — the only time the South African government has ever tried to deny Indigenous people a right to tribal land, an election ticket used by the ANC after the fall of apartheid, and enshrined in the South African Constitution.
A settlement was finally made in 2007, with a Pooling and Sharing Joint Venture (PSJV) set up that awarded Alexkor sole holder of marine mining rights, as well as a 51% interest in the terrestrial mining rights, while the community was granted 49%.
As part of the settlement, compensation to the sum of R190 million was meant to be awarded as reparation for diamond mining on !Ama land since 1928 with no benefit to the people. Various other benefits were listed, such as proper environmental rehabilitation and other financial commitments.
However, as another article on Groundup noted in March 2024, that “the community has gained little from the initial settlement, due to the internal conflict it fuelled, a dysfunctional Communal Property Association, as well as maladministration and state capture”.
Last week’s march against the allegedly corrupt CPA leadership brought to a head community fears that another betrayal of the people was about to take place at the hands of members of their own community.
The community also accuse Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum Gwede Mantashe of running roughshod over their rights in his haste to develop the Boegoebaai mega-project, a multi-billion rand element of the vastly expanded Namakwa Special Economic Zone.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has touted the project as a major step towards realising the country’s potential as a global leader in green hydrogen and derivative products, such as green hydrogen power fuels, but with little consultation with the people who subsist off this land for their survival and have called it home for centuries.
Andries Joseph said that the Boegoebaai project was just another example of decades of abuse by mining companies and the government that had left the community bereft of land and other rights, while alleged collusion between the board of the CPA and outside interests had denied the community a share in the wealth generated by diamond and other mining.
MD of Protect the West Coast Mike Schlebach said that PTWC “supports the people of the Richtersveld, and is working with the communities and their legitimate leaders to ensure their rights are upheld and they finally benefit from the wealth beneath their feet, and that their cultural and environmental heritage are safeguarded”.
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