The South African authorities have pushed back against Nigeria’s demand for compensation for nationals forced to leave their property behind in the rainbow country amid raging xenophobic attacks.

South Africa’s Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, stated this in a press conference on Friday.

“If you own a property in South Africa, it’s registered. Those who leave their properties, if they are properly legally registered in the country, they can dispose of the properties in the property market in SA, whether it’s a movable or immovable property,” Ms Ntshavheni said. 

She added, “Informal squatter camps and settlements are never properties because they are illegal in the country. So you are already violating our law if you tell us about a shack in an informal settlement. So there is no compensation that will come from government.”

The minister said South African government wanted to know the drug dens Nigerians were leaving behind so that it could clean up them up. 

“We’ll be interested to know where the drug dens of Nigerians are so they can show us where they’ve been holding the drugs so that we can clean the drugs in South Africa quite urgently,” Ms Ntshavheni said.

Ms Ntshavheni’s statement trailed the Nigerian government move, seeking compensation for nationals forced to leave their property behind in South Africa by xenophobes.

Speaking during an interview with Channels TV on July 1, Acting Nigerian High Commissioner to South Africa, Temitope Ajayi, said Nigerian government was compiling records of businesses and property belonging to Nigerians left behind in the country.

“I have asked them before they left yesterday  to document very accurately those things they were leaving behind in terms of businesses, in terms of even cars, movable and immovable properties. We can now take it up with the South African government. That is the next step we are going to take,” Mr Ajayi said.

He added, “So, this repatriation will not end with just taking people to Nigeria; we are going to systematically follow up on the information given to us. I told them to be very accurate with what they are going to give because we are going to work with the South African government to get to the exact locations of all these businesses, shops and properties and present them to the South African government for possible compensation because we will not allow the labour people have suffered to build over the years to just go down the drain or be taken over by people.’’

Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and the governments of other African countries have evacuated several of their citizens from South Africa following xenophobic attacks.