People who received cash vouchers from the government for having been forcibly removed from their ancestral land should be protected against crooks, said the Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Mr Lechesa Tsenoli.

Speaking at Malamulele Stadium, during the handover of vouchers to the value of more than R3 million on Tuesday, Tsenoli urged communities to protect the vulnerable. The vouchers are compensation to 58 families who were moved from Lwamondo in Venda to Ntlhaveni in 1969, to separate Xitsonga-speaking people from Tshivenda-speaking South Africans.

Each of the households received R54 650. Most of them are staying in the Lombard, Merwe, Mdabula and adjacent areas.

Tsenoli warned that there are many crooked people “and innocent women who have received the money are at the mercy of those people.”

Tsenoli advised the community to spend the money wisely, “especially for the education of your children.”

One of the claimants, Ms Mphephu Sayina Makamu, who now stays at Merwe A village, praised the government for fulfilling its promise.