Residents of some of Matlosana local municipality’s seventeen informal settlements in the North West have taken to the streets demanding that the municipality expedite the process of “formalising” them, igniting a fuse that authorities are struggling to extinguish.
The squatters who unlawfully occupied land belonging to the municipality and faced evictions, threw stones at a few vehicles in Jakaranda and Alabama informal settlements during the past two days while police maintained a heavy presence in areas affected by protests.
Almost 40 homes have been demolished leaving scores of people homeless from the land they invaded a year ago. The residents complained of torture, beatings and harassment while those in Jarakanda were demanding stands and water.
“The people sent here by the municipality to evict us; they threatened and assaulted us, and two community members are in hospital fighting for their life,” one resident said. “We’ve waited so long; now is the moment to act; our government is taking us for granted; we don’t have water, power, roads, or housing,” complained a resident who refused to be named.
A member of the Matlosana local municipality’s mayoral committee responsible for human settlements, Mojalefa Mosupi, said the municipality was working to formalise the seventeen informal settlements.
Mosupi said the municipality has many vacant stands in Jakaranda and Tigane, and pegging residents has begun. “We know that some people have more than one stand; we will confiscate them (extra stands) since a person is only eligible for one stand for the government to build them an RDP house. We’ve decided who will stay and who will be relocated to Jakaranda or Tigane,” Musupi said, pointing out that the lengthy procedure was due to geological issues since they needed to designate stands where the municipality could supply houses.
“We do not want to put people on a land without services. The problem with our people is that when they hear that the municipality has purchased land, they go and occupy it beforehand,” he said.
“We evict them using court interdicts because when you go there in person and tell them to leave, they do not want to, so we use court interdict to remove them.” Mosupi explained that building houses was part of the long-term plan and that construction was scheduled for 2024 and 2025.
He promised to continue supplying the informal settlement residents with the short-term goal service delivery goals, which includes transporting water to them through water tanks trucks and providing them with paraffin because they do not have electricity.
