Demand for land at fever pitch
Marchers want to build shacks
RESIDENTS of Siyanda informal settlement marched to a local area councillor’s house in Newlands East yesterday, wielding shovels, picks, sticks, axes and pangas, and demanding land to erect shacks.
The march came after the police chased them off two vacant plots that they had begun invading on Wednesday.
Area councillor Obed Qulo said that one of the plots, in Albacore Road, had been earmarked for a new school, whereas the other, at the corner of Dumisani Makhaye Drive and Musa Dladla (Newlands East) Drive, belonged to the municipality.
One of the residents, Baqhosile Mtshali, 58, said she shared a rented RDP house with her brother, his children, his wife and their grandchildren and there wasn’t enough space. “Where and how are we all supposed to sleep in that one-room RDP house?” she said.
Another resident, Regina Mhlongo, 49, said that before renting an RDP house she had lived in a shack since 1988. Every elected area councillor had promised them RDP houses but had failed to deliver.
“Qulo said in January this year we would be moving into our own RDP houses,” she said.
Yesterday morning irate residents began blocking vehicles on the M25 before deciding to look for Qulo at his offices.
When they found he wasn’t there they marched to his house, about 3km away. There, the protesters sang funeral hymns around a mock grave, complete with a cross and bearing the inscription “Rest in Peace”. Other protesters stood at the gate negotiating with the police to let them in.
But the police warned the protesters that they would be arrested for trespassing if they entered the property.
“If you are not letting us in to look for him, then we are going straight to that land to erect our shacks. We are tired of empty promises,” they told the police.
When Qulo was spotted walking towards his home, the protesters broke into ululation and whistling.
They then marched back to Qulo’s offices, insisting that he accompany them in his vehicle.
At the office, Qulo climbed on to the roof of the vehicle and addressed the protesters in an effort to calm them down.
“This is not the way to do things,” he said. “I’m the messenger and my job is to take your messages to the powers that be. I don’t have answers for everything, I don’t know everything.”
But the councillor received little sympathy from the crowd.
“We’ve heard these promises many times,” shouted one protester. “You go to the powers that be with our grievances but never return with answers – we are going to invade that land.”
While this was happening, eThekwini Municipality security kept a watchful eye over the vacant land in Musa Dladla Drive.
Later, Qulo said he had told the residents he had no authority over the vacant land and could not give them permission to build shacks on it.
He said the residents had elected four representatives to accompany him to meet the head of the municipality’s housing unit yesterday.
It was agreed that a technical team from the municipality would assess the land today and verify who owned it.
The municipality would meet the residents again on Wednesday to brief them on their findings, said Qulo.
Municipal spokesman Thabo Mofokeng said that security would monitor the area while the threat of land invasion remained. A police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker, said that the crowd had left peacefully yesterday and no arrests had been made.