More than 500 Bhisho families will be paid a total of R42 million under the land claims programme.

The Dispatch Online said Wednesday that the money would be deposited into the claimants’ bank accounts next week, more than a decade after two communities lodged claims with the national department of rural development and land reform.

The families lost their ancestral plots during apartheid.

The R42 million was owed to 368 families in Tyutyu village and 153 families in Balasi village. The amount is equal to R5 million each in compensation.

“The timing of the payout this month will prove perfect for the parents who will be sending their children to school and tertiary institutions,” said the national department of rural development and land reform’s national spokesman, Mtobeli Mxotwa.

The Tyutyu village claimants were forcibly removed after the now-defunct Ciskei homeland became independent in 1981. They lost their residential homes and grazing land.

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