In contrast to private farmland, where the land is exchanged betweenfarm owners and the mining companies, chiefs in mined rural land areagents of dispossession. Somkhele is one of many mining-affectedcommunities in which mining rights and compensation were concludedwith the facilitation of traditional leaders, who are notorious forentering into agreements with multinational corporations in theextractive industry without the full consent of theirconstituencies. For example, a court record in which Tendele CoalMining (Pty) Ltd (Tendele) sought to force resisting families torelocate in 2021 illustrates that the Mpukunyoni Traditional Counciland the Mpukunyoni Traditional Authority, under the late ChiefMkhwanazi, which is comprised of 30 headmen, representing 30villages, signed the relocations protocol before the beginning ofthe relocations in Somkhele. Families were, thereafter, informedabout the relocations as a mere bureaucratic exercise. What, then,is the role of traditional authorities after 1994 if they do notrepresent and safeguard the interests of their followers? Is thechief still chief of the people? This chapter describes themechanisms of dispossession on tribal land in KwaZulu-Natalprovince. As in chapter 2, it illustrates that communities on triballand were inadequately consulted, promised jobs and development andthat contracts after phase 1 mining were used performatively oncemore as a tick-box exercise. In reality, these were poorly draftedand did not address the intangible aspects of loss in an event ofdispossession.

Traditional leaders enjoy being positioned at the centre of localeconomies because of their historical role as administrators of theland. This role was solidified by colonial laws such as the NativeAdministration Act 38 of 1927 and the Native Trust and Land Act 18of 1936. Moreover, tribal trust property, ‘a form of propertyownership in which land was historically purchased by Africansthrough a variety of routes, and subsequently registered to a stateofficial “in trust” for a recognised “chief and his tribe”, in termsof the distinctive property laws that emerged in the colonialTransvaal during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’,also bestowed chiefs with land administrative powers. However,after1994, no legislative framework has directly articulated theland administrative powers of traditional leaders. In cases wherethe state made attempts to do so, rural communities, civil societyand academics have challenged this.