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·      The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform allocated a budget to empower farm workers to be shareholders ·      Northern Cape workers were scammed into selling their shares for R20 000 each ·      An investigation report gathers dust while government refused to pay investigator

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Sizwe sama Yende

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Throngs of Northern Cape farm labourers who lost their multi-million-rand stake in 22 commercial farms are still waiting for justice while government officials bicker about R3.7 million that must be paid to an investigator.

The drawn-out squabble about the payment toward Morwapheta Consulting Services owner, Mpho Sebashe, has diverted all the attention from the plight of workers over the past few years.

Sebashe was hired to investigate how white farmers allegedly beguiled workers into selling their shares back to the them for a measly R20 000 after they were given documents, written in Afrikaans legalese and which they did not understand, to sign.

The workers, Sebashe found, were duped into believing that they were signing for their annual dividends. WATCH: Big land scam in the Northern Cape

He investigated the Badirammogo Trust following the intervention of the Northern Cape Master of the High Court. Sebashe found that the same modus of operandi of giving legal papers to the workers, some of whom were illiterate, to sign was also used in the other 21 farms where government spent more than R100 million. Some of the workers were subsequently fired.

The National Department of Land Reform and Rural Development rolled out the farm equity schemes projects in 2011 at a cost of about R680 million. The 137 schemes involved 50 607 hectares of land and most of them were in the Western Cape.

In Badirammogo, government paid R14 million for 22 workers to acquire a 45% stake on Sonvrucht farm – a crop and livestock enterprise - situated at Kakamas. Since Sebashe finished the investigation in February 2020, the provincial Department of Agriculture, Environment, Land Reform and Rural Development has refused to pay him even though the Northern Cape High Court had ordered them to pay.

The department lodged an appeal late last year but withdrew it. In its argument in the Kimberley High Court, the department said the judges erred when they relied on minutes of a meeting that took place on June 30 2017 as being indicative that the department instructed the Master of the High Court to appoint Sebashe’s company.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL TO BE APPROACHED

The Northern Cape Shared Services office has recently briefed Land Reform and Rural Development minister, Mzwanele Nyhontso, about the impasse on Sebashe’s payment.

In a correspondence dated 03 September 2025 that City Press has seen, chief director for shared services Kgotso Moeketsi informs Nyhontso that he was not certain of the Master of the High Court’s decision to hire Sebashe to conduct the investigation.

The provincial Department of Agriculture, Environment, Land Reform and Rural Development was better placed to give a response, he said.

“On finalisation of the said investigation, the Master of the High Court presented the Provincial Department of Agriculture, with an invoice of R3 726 000, 00. The Provincial Department did not honour the submitted invoice and this then led to the current case,” he wrote.

Moeketsi told the minister that the dispute was between the Agriculture, Environment, Land Reform and Rural Development and the Master of the High Court.

“The Master of the High Court, Northern Cape Division, appointed a service provider (Mr Mpho Sebache) without following normal supply chain processes on an instruction by a meeting chaired by an official from the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Jomo Bonokwane,” he said.

FARM WORKERS RIGHTS INFRINGED

“The Master of the High Court litigated against the Provincial Department of Agriculture and the court ruled in his favour and ordered that the Provincial Department of Agriculture is liable for the payment of R3 726 000.00 for the investigation conducted by Mr Mpho Sebashe. The department’s appeal was dismissed (Judgement was delivered on the 23 February 2024).”

Moeketsi advises Nyhontso that the Solicitor-General (Kalayvani Pillay) must be approached to initiate negotiations between the Master of the High Court and the department.

“It is a fact that farm workers’ rights were infringed,” he said.

Agriculture, Environment, Land Reform and Rural Development MEC, Mase Manopole, had vehemently challenged Sebashe’s claim and even said she was not aware of the farm workers’ issue despite the existence of records of meetings in which her department’s officials participated.

Manopole had even threatened to sue one of the aggrieved farm workers, Mandilakhe Lincoln Mpemba, after he posted scathing comments on the department’s Facebook page about the scam.

“The MEC has no knowledge of farm workers who lost shares in any equity scheme. It should be stated that the equity scheme for farm workers was initiated by and that such is the competency of the National Department of (Agriculture) Land Reform & Rural Development . And as such the Provincial department of Agriculture had no authority over the administration of the scheme,” her office said in a statement last year.

Northern Cape Agriculture, Environment, Land Reform and Rural Development spokesperson, Stephen Galane, accused Sebashe of spreading falsehoods and misinformation despite “internal” and “independent” report that have been produced.

“The Department will take appropriate legal steps against Mr Sebashe. Should he believe he has a legitimate claim against the Department, he is advised to pursue the matter through the courts rather than through public commentary. The Department is in the process of instructing the Office of the State Attorney to act in this regard. Given that the matter is sub judice, and that Mr Sebashe is not a party to the ongoing proceedings, the Department is not in a position to comment further on specific details at this stage,” Galane said.

Sebashe said: “The department has been lying to the minister that the matter was sub judice even though they withdrew their appeal. They are not paying me and the workers are not getting any assistance.”