Advocate Dan Bregman, who is representing Abraham Malan, in a case he is claiming chunks of land in Pilane in Kgatleng District, has submitted that if the land board cannot give back Malan the land he is claiming, then it should pay him money based on the land’s value.
Bregman also submitted that the dispute between the land board and Malan appears to be only on the amount of portion that Malan is entitled to, adding that the land board has admitted that Malan owns land.
This, he submitted, was the dispute between the two parties and that the land Tribunal has now been asked to adjudicate on the issue.
Bregman said his client had stated quite well that he was not seeking any land which may belong to Kgosi Isang , his family or descents.
On the issue of payments of legal costs, Bregman said that the land board should bear the costs of the case because it had been applying delaying tactics in order for the case to drag on and that it had taken five years to bring out the minutes of September 24- 27 , 2002 land board meeting.
Further, he said, there was no explanation for the delay of five years for the delivery of the minutes, which were first requested in January 2003 and that, in regard to the wrongful conduct of the land board in the conduct of its case, and its refusal to deliver minutes of the meeting of 24- 27 September 2002 despite assurances, and its wrongful delivering of land which resulted in the interdict, the case could not continue on merits until November 29, 2009.
The land board, he said, should also pay costs for four days of argument and of evidence because it had refused, from commencement of hearing in December 2004, to accept any portion of Malan’s claim or to make a tender of it.
Dutch Leburu and Reuben Lekorwe are representing the Kgatleng Land Board whilst Land Tribunal President, Phetsolo Nare, is presiding.
At the height of this matter, Kgatleng Land Board property worth millions of pula were attached by deputy sheriffs working for Malan after a Lobatse High Court ruling that he be paid costs for the case at the High Court.
