Residents want City to speed up housing plans in Strand
Evicted land occupiers have been staying in community halls, which means many social grant recipients have had to spend much more money on transport to get their grants at alternative venues
A couple of dozen residents marched to the City of Cape Town municipality’s offices in Strand on Wednesday. The group handed over a memorandum, demanding that the City provide homes for families occupying community halls in Lwandle and Nomzamo.
It has been a month since occupiers moved into the halls after their shacks, built on land owned by the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) and property development company ASLA, were demolished.
As a result, activities usually hosted at the halls, like monthly social grant payments, have been moved.
On Wednesday, marchers complained that they now spent R40 for a single trip to the nearest South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) office in Eerste River.
March organiser Azole Fumba said: “We reject the attempt by the municipality to use the land for campaigning for the local government elections in 2021. We call on the responsible officials to revise the 18-month proposed time frame to permanently relocate occupiers.”
When the group reached the municipality’s office, they were told officials were in a council meeting. The crowd then blocked the entrance of the building, demanding to be addressed by someone.
Resident Noxolo Silala said: “The money we spend travelling to SASSA could be used for food.”
After two hours, Xolani Joja from the City’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit arrived. He told protesters that he was sent by Malusi Booi, the Mayco Member for Human Settlements. He apologised that officials were not available to address them. He promised to deliver their memorandum and to arrange a meeting with their leaders.
In an email response to GroundUp, Booi said the City was still evaluating different pieces of land in the area to determine whether it could house occupiers and others in need of alternative accommodation.
He said the City could only begin negotiations with the respective land owners once it had done its own price valuations. He refused to confirm which parcels of land the City was considering.
Meanwhile, the N2 was briefly blocked with burning tyres after private security members demolished a structure that was built on the ASLA owned land.
Next: Police are making arbitrary arrests at protests
Previous: Springs residents protest against violent vigilantes
© 2019 GroundUp.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.