The Knoflokskraal settlement, started in 2020, has grown to house thousands of people. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks
- Public works minister Dean Macpherson has applied to the court to stop the expansion of the Knoflokskraal settlement in Grabouw in the Western Cape.
- Thousands of people live in the self-proclaimed Khoisan settlement, which was started in 2020.
- The public works department said attempts to engage with leaders in Knoflokskraal had failed.
The Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Dean Macpherson has filed an application to the Western Cape High Court to stop the further expansion of the six-year-old occupation called Knoflokskraal in the Elgin Valley in Grabouw.
Knoflokskraal, a self-proclaimed Khoisan settlement, was initially occupied in 2020 and has since grown into a settlement of thousands of people. It is nearly 2,000 hectares large and is spread across several plots of land. The first people who occupied the site said they did so as a reclamation of their indigenous rights.
The minister’s lengthy application details whistleblower reports alleging the illegal sale of plots at Knoflokskraal and the failure to contain the growing occupation.
Various businesses operate at Knoflokskraal, such as a restaurant, tuckshops, and livestock and vegetable farming. Currently, there are several royal houses or groupings under different leadership.
Last week, during a media briefing, Macpherson said the court application would “restore the rule of law at Knoflokskraal, where it has ceased to exist”.
In the founding affidavit, Dumisani Gqibela, regional manager for DPWI in Cape Town, said that the department was approaching the court for a containment order that would prevent “further unlawful occupation”, the erection of more houses, the bringing of building materials into Knoflokskraal, and the “commercial subdivision and sale of State land by criminal syndicates”.
Gqibela attached reports by whistleblowers which allege the unlawful sale of plots, some for R1,500, as well as the payment of “levies” to a parallel police force operating at Knoflokskraal. He said it was “of great concern” that a parallel police force or “tribal police” had been established by the community.
He said previous containment orders from 2020 and 2021 were “insufficient” because they did not cover all six properties comprising Knoflokskraal.
Gqibela also noted that security measures had failed. Since 2021, about eight security providers had been used to secure the site but occupation and construction of houses has “continued unabated”. At last week’s media briefing, Macpherson said that since 2021, the DPWI spent R58-million on security at Knoflokskraal.
The public works department is also asking the court for an order directing people at Knoflokskraal to cooperate with its appointed independent social facilitator, providing information on identity, socio-economic circumstances, and “basis on which the occupiers assert a right to occupy”.
Gqibela said this order was necessary because attempts at engagements despite meetings with leaders had failed. He said community leadership was “fragmented” and their “respective mandates are unclear”.
In May 2026, he said, a request for household information was made through the placement of containers around Knoflokskraal as anonymous feedback points. However, a container was set alight and a security official assaulted. A report in the court papers by security company Blue Falcon details how community members intimidated security officials, hit a security guard with a crowbar which cracked his helmet, and poured fuel into a container to set it alight. The report states a case was opened with the South African Police Service (SAPS).
In the papers, Gqibela said the SAPS has “provided little assistance to bring law and order” at Knoflokskraal. The application asks the court to direct SAPS to assist in enforcement of the orders sought.
Gqibela said the department intended to notify Knoflokskraal residents of the court case via various loud hailers, notices at the containers and notice boards, emails to leadership, and social media. He asked for the main application to be heard on a semi-urgent basis.
In a statement on Tuesday, 20 October, the department welcomed a Western Cape High Court order allowing the department to notify residents via loudhailers and notices, ahead of the hearing on the main application.
Paramount Chief of the Aficaner tribe and chairperson of the United Knoflokskraal Khoi Council Omar Sadien said, “We are not land invaders or squatters, we are reclaimers.” He said the group had rights under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
“Some of us stay there because we have no place else to go, and some of us stay there to fight for Knoflokskraal, and the rights of the Khoisan people,” he said.
“The community will mobilise and respond in a manner we see fit, should we deem the implementation of any measures undignified, hostile or contrary to our cultural reclaim of Knoflokskraal,” he said.
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