White man wants his land back

In a surprising turn, a man who was forced to sell his dairy farm to make way for the ‘coloured’ township of Atlantis outside Cape Town has turned to the Land Claims Court and is demanding that he is paid R28-million in compensation.

The man, 72-year-old Abraham Wollach, has taken his case to the Land Claims Court listing the national government, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, the Commission on Land Rights and the regional land commissioner as respondents. The respondents are opposing Wollach’s application.

Court papers show that Hartebeeskraal Farms had owned the land and that Wollach’s father, Lazarus, was the majority shareholder in that enterprise. The farm was 1 500 hectares in extent.

Papers presented to the court by Wollach indicate that the family had been forced to sell the land in December 1973 because the area had been declared a “coloured” group area and it was unlawful for the family to remain there as the family was classified as “white”.

The Community Development Board bought the land for R475 627. The present national government has declared that this was a fair value for the land but Wollach’s advocate, Joel Krige, says that this was neither just nor equitable compensation.

In his paper’s Wollach submitted historical valuation reports that show the value of the land was at least R848 100 at the time when it was sold. Krige says that the compensation amount should be the historical valuation less the amount that was paid, a discrepancy of R372 473.

He says compensation should take into account factors such as inflation and the present day value of the land, which is now worth R28-million. Wollach is also asking the state to pay his legal costs.

In his papers Wollach says that the sale amounted to dispossession in terms of a racially discriminatory law and entitles him to restitution of the land, the loss of the land rights and the loss of the value of the land.

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