Ingonyama Trust’s application to have private company, Bayede, livestream proceedings has been denied by the court.

Ngcukaitobi: 'The conversion scheme of changing PTOs to lease agreements was used as an instrument of terror. There was lack of proper consent and not preceded by consultation.' It was a scheme from the top, enforced by the induna.

Ngcukaitobi: 'The rental payments raised R96 million in 2016 but there is no evidence that funds were used for the benefit of the community'

Ngcukaitobi: The lease scheme has rendered tenure more vulnerable and insecure, in contravention of s 25(6) of the constitution

Ngcukaitobi: Judging for the amounts of money received by the Trust for rental revenue it is clear that the primary factor for the scheme was financial.

Ngcukaitobi: The applicants have informal rights to land in terms of IPILRA

Court has adjourned for a short break.

And we’re back in session.

Ngcukaitobi: As an informal rights holder, you cannot be deprived to your right to land without consent. ITB did not get the informed consent of the people to change their PTOs to leases.

Ngcukaitobi: The decision of the Trust to convert PTOs to leases also was not in accordance with customary law procedure as no meeting was held, no notice given and the majority did not consent.

Ngcukaitobi: Lease agreements downgrade the lessees’ right to customary ownership of the land. Their tenure now becomes conditional upon payment of rent.

Ngcukaitobi: People who have customary rights to land are now subject to dispossession for failure to pay rent. This completely disregards their customary law rights.

Ngcukaitobi: The nature of lease agreements is fundamentally at odds with customary law.

Ngcukaitobi: The true and ultimate owners are now standing in the position of lessees. ITB has now made itself into a lessor.

Ngcukaitobi: The fact that the Trust has made itself a landlord is at odds with customary law and people's customary rights have been downgraded. The entire scheme should fall. We cannot just prune the bad parts.

Ngcukaitobi: The Minister should have intervened and acted to protect the commmunities affected by the Trust's actions. The Minister should set up afresh the PTO system.

Ngcukaitobi: We can't just say that PTOs are apartheid-era schemes when rights are being downgraded by leases. The Minister must set up a mechanism to set up PTOs again.

Ngcukaitobi: The Minister knew about the problems but did nothing about it. This is negligent.

Ngcukaitobi: Baseless and quite frankly intimidating allegations were made by former Judge Ngwenya, the Chairperson of the Ingonyama Trust Board, in his affidavits.

Ngcukaitobi: The Minister could devise another scheme other than PTOs but there must be some formalisation of customary rights for people.

Court is back in session after adjourning for lunch. Counsel for the Ingonyama Trust is addressing the court.

Judge Olsen: If your argument (ITB) is that leases can be used as security to go to the bank for a bond. What happens if a person defaults on the mortgage? The lease rights will be foreclosed on and sold in execution.

Judge continues: But what about community rights? What about customary rights that a person has?

Judge Olsen: There seems to be no justification made for the leases beyond their commercial value.

Counsel for ITB: We deny any coercion took place when it came to converting PTOs to lease agreements.

Counsel for ITB: The Trust denies that they offended IPILRA, the Constitution or any customary law by the conclusion of leases.