The Department of Water and Sanitation denies any racial discrimination in Hartbeespoort land allocation following a report by the South African Human Rights Commission last week.
“DWS acknowledges the report released by the SAHRC on 26 November 2025 and the seriousness of the concerns raised by the Commission regarding historical disparities and the need to advance equality, dignity, and just administrative action in the management of state resources. The Department remains firmly committed to addressing these concerns as part of its broader obligation to promote social justice, transformation, and equitable access to public resources,” DWS spokesperson, Wisane Mavasa said.
“However, the DWS is not in agreement that, since 1994, it has violated the rights of black applicants or engaged in systemic exclusion. The inequities in lease allocations are a product of the apartheid legacy of long-term leases for 99 years. The Department experienced huge resistance during the process of revoking those long-term leases, but ultimately the courts confirmed DWS’s right to revoke them.”
The Department’s new lease policy only makes provision for a maximum of 9 years, 11 months lease agreements. The Department also now has a policy which has converted all its dams from single-purpose to multipurpose use, and opened the dams and areas around them for other purposes, including tourism, economic and recreational activities.
The department currently has 77 applications for leases consisting of 42 African, 27 white and 8 mixed-race applicants.”Only 21 (13 Black and 8 White) of the 77 applicants provided all the required information in their applications. The rest of the applicants were requested to provide the required information, but to date, 55 of the applicants have not submitted it,” she said.
Currently only four leases at Hartbeespoort were granted by the DWS – two to white males, one to a black male and one to a mixed-race person.
The SAHRC said in its findings that the Commission did not make any findings regarding racism in Hartbeespoort. “It must be noted that whilst the Commission did not make any findings regarding racism in Hartbeespoort, the Commission’s investigation found that black people and women had been unfairly discriminated against insofar as land allocation along the shoreline of Hartbeespoort Dam is concerned. Also, whilst the Commission has not made any findings on the “racial war” of whites against blacks, the Commission found that there are racial tensions in Hartbeespoort caused by a convergence of many factors,” the SAHRC report states.