LAND DISPUTE: GOGO LEFT AT STRANGER’S HOME

MKHONDVO – A man who innocently acquired a homestead at Mkhondvo in the Shiselweni Region has inherited an elderly woman who is at the centre of a land dispute.

The elderly woman is a mother to the previous owner of the homestead, Mphathi Mhlanga, who insists that he long surrendered the homestead, to the umphakatsi after he went through a gruelling divorce with his wife.

A divorce decree between Mhlanga and his former wife, Thabile Mkhaliphi, was issued by the Manzini Magistrates Court on June 20, 2011, while they were both staying in the now controversial Mkhondvo homestead which is on Swazi Nation Land (SNL). Before ending their marriage, they had two children aged between 29 and 30.

Mhlanga’s mother, Khumbuzile Zulu, who has now been rendered homeless, had also stayed at the homestead for a few years until she was taken away by her younger son, Inspector Musa Mango, who is a police officer based at the Hhohho Regional Headquarters in Mbabane. Mhlanga who shares the same mother but different fathers with Mango said, at the time, he was faced with a double dilemma.  “My wife and I were divorcing and my mother went to stay with my brother, which resulted in my home being deserted as I was also staying far from it to be closer to work. I started getting complaints that the homestead had turned into a den of thieves, something that did not sit well with the community,” he said.

Mhlanga said the only option for him was to surrender the home back to the umphakatsi. It was a result of these developments that the home ended up in the ownership of Mhlanga, who came in through the normal kukhonta process. Kukhonta is a traditional process by which a person is given a piece of land on SNL after paying customary duties to the royal kraal.

Reasons

Things came to a head when Mhlanga’s half brother, Mango, decided to part ways with their mother for personal reasons. Given that their mother (Zulu) did not have a home of her own, the only plausible option was to take her to Mkhondvo at the disputed homestead.

It was on a Saturday afternoon, two weeks ago, when Inspector Mango arrived at the homestead in a bakkie in which there was his mother and her belongings. Tsela, the new owner, was away, but had left a relative who did not want his name mentioned, to look after the premises.

Mango immediately first checked all the other houses in the compound until he decided to keep the goods in a rondavel to the far eastern side of the compound. “He then offloaded the household goods into the rondavel,” said the man found at the compound. Mhlanga said Tsela had then reported the incident at the Kholwane Royal Kraal, which later summoned him (Tsela) to the umphakatsi.

He told Eswatini News that he was taken aback by his brother’s actions because the homestead had long ceased to be his.  He said prior to the incident, his mother had tried, with the help of his former wife, to reclaim the homestead from the new owner, even going as far as pleading with traditional structures. The first structure to adjudicate over the issue was the King’s Liaison Office, known as Ndabazabantu, of the Shiselweni Regional Administration.

Arguments

This structure heard arguments from all parties involved, including the two children of Mhlanga and Mkhaliphi, who said they wanted to return to their home at Mkhondvo.

“We heard the argument of the children of Mphathi Mhlanga, who wanted to return to their home at Mkhondvo. Ndabazabantu committed itself to resolve the issue and in the process, found that Mphathi and Thabile Mkhaliphi had married through civil rights, then they divorced. 

After some time, the children and their mother found that their father had sold the home to Tsela.” Ndabazabantu said when Mhlanga was questioned about this allegation, he said the children had abandoned the home and they failed to listen to him when he ordered that one of the children’s dowry payment event should be held at the homestead. Instead, they held the event at the Malkerns farm, where his ex-wife and children now reside.

“Mhlanga also told Ndabazabantu that when he applied for kukhonta in the area, he was still a bachelor and was not even accompanied by his mother, but by an emissary identified as Ngcamphalala and another man known as Khiza as well as his children.”

Submissions

Ndabazabantu also listened to submissions made by one Robert Madvolo Mhlanga who said Mhlanga khontaed in the company of his mother. The King’s Liaison Office was also told that Mhlanga was in the company of his former wife when he acquired the piece of land.

However, the Kholwane Royal Kraal disputed all this and corroborated Mhlanga’s statement that he was neither with his mother nor wife when he khontaed. The royal kraal also said Mhlanga was a bachelor when he settled in the area.

“Ndabazabantu ruled against the notion of taking the children out of their parental home. If the children still want their home back, they must go back to it. 

“Indlunkhulu must report to the chief of the area, Manana, that Tsela is supposed to vacate the homestead within three months,” reads the judgment by Ndabazabantu.

Mhlanga filed an appeal with Ndabazabantu, pointing to many flaws in the judgment, and demonstrated how many salient points were disregarded in his argument. He said the issue was a family matter, which therefore meant his children brought it to Ndabazabantu prematurely. He said Ndabazabantu was wrong to hear the matter without referring it back to the family structures.He also said the judgment was overtaken by events because the homestead was no longer in his jurisdiction as he had long surrendered it back to the royal kraal.

“I did this openly and according to the customs and traditions of the country. By so doing I have forfeited and denounced any right attached to and or accruing from that piece of land.”

Letter

He also furnished a letter from the royal kraal which states that he no longer owned the land but had returned it to the royal kraal. He also alleged that his children had never stayed at Mkhondvo, but at his other home in Malkerns, so it was wrong for Ndabazabantu to say they must return to Mkhondvo.

“When my mother left the homestead in 2015, no one stayed there. I could not move in with my second wife, hence I decided to return the land, including the homestead to the Kholwane Umphakatsi,” he averred.

He also said Ndabazabantu was wrong to overrule the Kholwane Umphakatsi because it had a right to give land to whomsoever it pleased.

Mhlanga said the judgment of Ndabazabantu must be set aside and that the dispute must be referred back to family structures for adjudication.

Alternatively, if his children need another home apart from that in Malkerns, he said he must be given a chance to look for another piece of land on their behalf, even if it’s from the same area of Kholwane.

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