Johannesburg — A MAJOR land claim on dozens of farms in the Waterberg wilderness area in Limpopo province - several of them with mineral rights held by companies - has been degazetted.

Degazetting means there is no longer an arguable prima facie case to be made for the land claim and landowners are not obliged to sell to the state unless new evidence emerges warranting its regazetting.

The move is likely to result in turmoil on the ground, with claimant communities threatening violent protests, and has left landowners wondering why they were subjected to five years of uncertainty, which discouraged investment in the region.

The claim was brought on behalf of the Motse community. Affected landowners include the 36000ha Lapalala Wilderness and eight state farms. Mining rights to 11 farms are held by EyeSizwe Coal, Rio Tinto, Anglo , De Beers and Gold Fields Coal.

SA's restitution law allowed victims of apartheid forced removals after 1913 to lodge claims against their ancestral land by the end of 1998.

To qualify for restitution claimants had to show they were dispossessed under racist laws or practices and were not properly compensated. The land of farmers who refuse to sell can be expropriated.

For several years farmers' unions have complained that the Land Claims Commission's habit of expanding the size of claims after the 1998 lodgement cut-off date was illegal. KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, where the largest and most complex rural claims were lodged, were most affected. In one case, Magoebaskloof in Limpopo, the claim grew from 42 to more than 600 properties.

In May the commission admitted for the first time it had wrongly gazetted farms not mentioned in claim forms and began to degazette them.

The timing of the announcement led to speculation that it was linked to its budget crisis, which it admitted to in July. The commission has R10bn in outstanding commitments to landowners and claimants and cannot afford to pay for all the farms it gazetted.

The commission denies this, saying it would never abdicate its responsibility to investigate and finalise land claims for the sake of expediency, and remained confident that Parliament would find the money to pay for all outstanding claims.

In the Motse case the commission had quadrupled the number of farms listed in the original claim forms by turning four claims by individuals into a much larger community claim.

A Land Claims Court ruling against the commission in 2007 said its decision to gazette the claim displayed an obvious lack of rationality, prompting a rare punitive costs order. The court ordered the commission to degazette the expanded community claim.

The commission's compliance with this court order this month does not imply an immediate end to uncertainties caused by the land claim. In its withdrawal notice published on December 11 the commission stressed it was not precluded from regazetting the claims "after [a] comprehensive investigation is conducted and it is found that such claims are compliant". It is likely claims will only be regazetted on the limited number of farms listed in the original claim forms.

The commission said it had appointed a dedicated task team to speed it up. "This process may take several months," the commission said on Friday.

The negative consequences of the commission's administrative blunder of gazetting land claims on the wrong farms are severe.

A gazette notice simply indicates the commission is satisfied claimants have an arguable case that it intends investigating further, so in theory land claims should have no effect on existing farming operations until transfer. In reality, as the commission itself has conceded, gazetting discourages investment and leads to declining food production on affected farms. This "undesired effect goes against the development objective of the restitution process", the commission said in May.

The blunder also contributed to rural instability by raising unrealistic expectations among claimant communities that cannot be met. The Motse community is particularly angry that the commission wants to delist state farms and properties belonging to landowners who did not contest the claim.

"This is going to cause a fight," said Motse leader Alpheus Matlou. "People are coming back to this area in December and they want to mobilise.

"The whole thing is out of control. They want to burn down the fences, houses, everything. I can't stop them. It's their land, and they want it back."

Joint-venture plans dependent on the commission paying out landowners, including Lapalala Wilderness, are in jeopardy. Lapalala intended ploughing the proceeds of the sale of its land into an upmarket lodge and ecotourism venture with guaranteed community ownership and financial benefits.

"The commission promised it would regazette the claims on Lapalala, but they keep promising and doing nothing," said Matlou. "We have a very good relationship with Lapalala and we want our partnership to work. This degazetting is delaying our partnership -- it's delaying our development, our vision and our progress."

Mike Gregor, CEO of Rapula Farming, which owns Lapalala, confirmed the planned joint venture was on hold until the issue was resolved.

"We can't implement any business plan or involve overseas investors until we get a definite decision from the government on the status of the land," he said.

But the commission will not concede that its poor handling of the claim is responsible for instability and disinvestment in the region.