State to buy Mala Mala

Durban - The government will buy the exclusive Mala Mala Game Reserve, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti said on Tuesday.

"We are going to buy Mala Mala, but we are going to ask them [the owners] to stay on," he said at a three-day National House of Traditional Leaders lekgotla.

The "land ownership structure" in South Africa needed to change, but there was no need for the economic use of the land to be changed.

The 13 000ha game reserve is currently subject to a land claim by the Mhlanganisweni community.

Business Day reported in April that the owners of the land had valued it at R900m, but that Nkwiniti's department was prepared to pay only R460m for the resort.

The 2 000-strong Mhlanganisweni community was removed during the apartheid era.

The battle about the price is before the Constitutional Court, which has to determine what is fair and equitable.

According to Business Day, the regional land claims commissioner had offered R760m for the land, but this offer had not been approved by the ministry.