Court says state can use loudhailers to restore rule of law in Knoflokskraal

The first step towards restoring the rule of law to Knoflokskraal has been achieved.

Knoflokskraal is the name given to about 2 000 hectares of state-owned land near Grabouw in the Western Cape that has been unlawfully occupied – in some instances by people for a holiday home, as well as Airbnbs and restaurants – since the Covid-19 lockdown in late 2020.

Read: State fights to reclaim land used for holiday homes and restaurants

The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) successfully obtained an order from the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town this week authorising substituted service of the department’s main application to the illegal occupiers of the property and community leaders.

This was Part A of the department’s application, which was seeking an order allowing the department to serve the application in different ways with the aim of ensuring all affected persons have a reasonable opportunity to receive notice of the proceedings and attend the main hearing.

Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Dean Macpherson welcomed the order authorising substituted service of the department’s main application.

He said the order marked the first step to restoring the rule of law at Knoflokskraal and gathering the information necessary to enable evidence-based decision-making related to the unlawful occupation.

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The order authorises a comprehensive service and notification process to ensure that all affected parties are properly notified and given an opportunity to engage with the legal process.

This includes multilingual notices, loudhailer announcements, service on community structures, newspaper publications and online access to court papers.

Macpherson said the department will proceed with implementing these court-sanctioned measures ahead of the main application, which is expected to be heard in February next year and reaffirms the department’s commitment to restoring lawful governance through transparent, procedurally fair and court-supervised processes.

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He said restoration of the rule of law at Knoflokskraal begins with ensuring that the law is respected and that proper legal processes are followed.

“We will not allow unlawful occupation and the breakdown of the rule of law to go unaddressed.

“At the same time, we are committed to ensuring that our actions are lawful, procedurally fair and subject to judicial oversight,” he said.

Six particular properties

DPWI Cape Town regional manager Dumisani Gqibela said in the founding affidavit the application relates to six properties that have been and remain the subject of unlawful and illegal occupation.

Gqibela said the DPWI is the statutory custodian of these six properties.

Knoflokskraal is adjacent to the Houwteq facility, which is owned by Denel Industrial Properties and serves as a dedicated satellite assembly, integration and testing facility.

The Houwteq facility owned by Denel Industrial Properties. Image: Denel Properties website

Prior to the establishment of the Houwteq facility, the location was deemed suitable to the safety and security needs of such a facility because the site was considered unsuitable agricultural and human settlement development.

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Unlawful activity continues ‘unabated’

Gqibela said despite two interim interdicts to prevent further occupation, structural erections and intimidation of DPWI officials, these activities continued unabated.

He added that the exact number of occupants and structures erected at Knoflokskraal remains uncertain.

It is estimated that there are between 15 000 and 20 000 persons who occupy the properties and there are about 4 500 structures erected throughout the site, according to Gqibela.

“These structures take various forms, including brick and mortar structures, wooden cabin structures and informal structures using zinc and other material.

“All of these occupations have occurred without the consent of DPWI. Moreover, the occupiers do not have any other right in law to occupy the properties. Their occupation of the properties is unlawful,” he said.

Macpherson said earlier this month there are potentially thousands of people involved in the illegal land invasion, many with second homes at Knoflokskraal similar to holiday homes, while residing in Cape Town.

“These are not small homes. These are not homes of first residents. These are secondary holiday homes and … some of them are being used as Airbnbs and some of them are restaurants,” he said.

Applications

The main high court application, Part B, has several connected components:

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Containment to prevent the continued occupation from expanding further by preventing new occupations, further construction, the movement of building materials onto the site for new structures, and the unlawful sale or allocation of state land.
Engagement and enumeration by a social facilitator to establish who is living at Knoflokskraal, how households are made up, when people arrived, their socio-economic circumstances, what vulnerabilities exist and what cultural or heritage claims are being advanced, if any.
Prohibiting unlawful conduct, including violence, threats, intimidation and harassment of government officials and contractors, plus unlawful land transactions and the operation of parallel policing structures.
Enforcement to require the South African Police Service (SAPS) to assist in enforcing the court’s directives and maintaining public order.

Gqibela said each of these outcomes is interdependent.

“Containment is the necessary precondition for engagement and credible enumeration; enumeration is the necessary precondition for evidence-based decision making in respect of what constitutes an appropriate intervention at Knoflokskraal; the interdicting of illegal and unlawful conduct is necessary to preserve the integrity of both processes; and SAPS’ executing its duties is central to all of these objectives.

“Regrettably, the intervention of this court is necessary to achieve these modest outcomes.

“This is so because … the DPWI has not been able to access the community to achieve these objectives to date.

“Instead it has been met by angry residents, conducting themselves in a violent and inflammatory way and being obstructive to any attempts by DPWI to obtain information as to the state of matters on the properties.

“So too, SAPS has provided little assistance to bring law and order at the properties.

“Court orders are needed to avoid ongoing self-help and lawlessness by the community,” he said.

Gqibela added that while the DPWI has engaged and addressed several letters to community leadership structures, it doing so must not be construed as:

Constituting a recognition of a right of any person to occupy or to remain in occupation of Knoflokskraal;
Any ancestral, cultural or restitution claim in respect to Knoflokskraal; or
Any traditional of Khoi-San leadership or structure, the recognition of which is governed by the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act.

Homes erected in the informal settlement of Knoflokskraal in Grabouw in March 2025.

About 100 people living in Knoflokskraal protested next to the N2 in May 2023.

A March 2022 photograph showing hundreds of people living on state land in Knoflokskraal.

Knoflokskraal was first occupied in November 2020 in an effort to establish a self-sustaining ‘sovereign Khoisan community’.

Images: Ashraf Hendricks/GroundUp

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