SAHRC finds DWS guilty of racial, gender bias over leasing land around Hartbeespoort Dam

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has found that the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) failed to address longstanding racial and gender biases in land lease allocations around Hartbeespoort Dam.

This follows a complaint from the Hartbeespoort Dam Development Initiative, claiming that black applicants have faced both historic and ongoing racial exclusion in the allocation of leases along the dam shoreline.

According to the complaint, only two black applicants were awarded rights to occupy land over the past decade.

The commission states that during the investigation of the complaint, the Department of Water and Sanitation conceded to unfair discrimination in occupancy, although it attributed this to a pre-democracy trend.

Commissioner Tshepo Madlingozi said that the SAHRC found that the DWS did not address the issues reported in its leasing protocol

“That’s the headline finding, that the Department of Water and Sanitation failed to address the gender and racial disparities.”

The commission found that the DWS violated the right of all people to benefit equally from the law and breached several provisions of the Promotion of Equality and Unfair Discrimination Act.

“The State is in violation of that, let me be very clear. Unfair discrimination is not only because of commission, the courts have been very clear that unfair discrimination also exists where there is omission,” added Madlingozi.