Resident pin Palm Ridge invasion on government’s ‘empty promises’

Residents who invaded and illegally occupied serviced stands at Palm Ridge Ext 34 in December last year blamed the government’s failure to prioritise their needs and prolonged empty promises.

This followed the MMC for Human Settlement, Alco Ngobese, pleading with them to vacate the serviced stands before effecting the eviction order.

Ngobese addressed the residents at a public meeting on February 10 and 18 at the Thabo Tona Primary School.

The Ext 34 community leaders’ vice chairperson, Zolile Champion, and members Kenneth Dlamini and Sphamandla Nyembe requested a platform to share their version of the story.

According to Dlamini, most residents were backroom dwellers in various Kathorus townships.

He said they paid various amounts ranging from R30 000 and more to get the stands at Emadakeni informal settlement (EIS) in 2012.

He noted that when they were temporally placed in EIS, the leadership promised to relocate them to a developing area near Ext 34. However, that did not materialize.

Champion said in 2017, they promised to move them to Ext 17, 18 and 19, but those houses are now occupied by people from Thembisa, Thokoza, Katlehong and Germiston, who took them by force.

“Between 2012 and 2018, nothing was done to address our housing challenges. In 2019, we formed a community leadership structure to follow up,” said Champion.

“In 2019, EIS residents, who had the financial means to bribe officials, were relocated to Ext 9 and Promise Land, while those without capital were left behind,” he added.

“A portion of people were moved, and we were told that there is a project to fix the area and the people would return after three months, but that never happened.

”We started engaging the local leaders, the municipality, the Department of Human Settlement and the community liaison officer about the project, but there was no response,” said Champion.

He said they were told they could not be allocated at Ext 34 because they are not approved. Although many people from EIS have been approved, they are not allocated.

“There are people who registered in 2012 and others registered in 2018, but once they pay, they are approved, while those who registered in 2012 remained unapproved. This situation leaves us stuck in unbearable conditions in the informal settlement.”

He said they are in danger because they are affected by floods. When a person is sick, emergency vehicles cannot get into the community. When they have funerals, they need manpower to carry the coffin to the main roads.

“The structures are too close to each other. When you want to put a tent up for a funeral service, you end up using people’s space, and as cultural people, once you contaminate someone’s yard with a dead body, you have to cleanse it.”

Champion said sometimes the committee has to deal with people who fight over space when a person wants to dig a pit toilet because there is not enough space.

While responding to Ngobese’s request, the trio mentioned that they are willing to vacate the serviced stands at Ext 34, but only if the department provides them with a suitable place to live.

They said they took the matter to the Johannesburg High Court, and their lawyer has not informed them of an eviction order.

“The department came to the meeting to tell us that we have lost the case without providing proof in the form of an eviction letter from the high court.”

Champion said the community contributes money to pay a lawyer, but the department uses the state’s money to fight them.

“The strategy they are using is to drag the case because they know that, eventually, we will run out of funds. We are not fighting with them, we want them to see our concerns,” they explained.

He said it is inconsiderate of the MMC to say they should go back to where they came from because he never provided them with houses and never engaged with them.

“It would be better if he had said that having given us houses,” he added.

The president of an NGO called South African National Christian Forum, Marothi Josias Mashashane, informed Kathorus MAIL that they are the first applicant on the motion as the friend of the courts.

He said he does not know about the eviction order, citing that the Johannesburg High Court granted it for the people to remain in Ext 34, Palm Ridge, on December 23.

“The order was challenged by the municipality and the provincial government and it was set aside. They applied for another order to remove the people. We are going to set it aside tomorrow in court, pending the appeal,” said Mashashane.

He said they want the provincial government to send surveyors to survey the area where they want to force those people to stay.

“If that report says the place is conducive for a human being to stay, then we will allow them to remove people. But we are 100% certain that no surveyor will declare the place conducive. I have been there in person, and I have seen the place.

“If it is not conducive, especially under the situation we are in where the president declared the country is under disaster management for floods,” he continued.

“Why should we risk people’s lives because the government only attends to them when they count the incidents instead of preventing them?”

Nyembe pleaded with the public to assist them with donations to continue their court case.

Responding to allegations of corruption, the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements (DoHS) head of communications, Tahir Sema urged community members to report all allegations of fraud and corruption to the national anti-corruption hotline on 0800 701 701 and to law enforcement agencies like the SAPS.

“The public is also urged not to check their housing application status on social media platforms. The department does not engage with beneficiaries on social media and does not request money or payments of any kind from beneficiaries to be allocated houses or stands.

Beneficiaries must visit our customer support centres to be assisted in person, not via social media,” Sema noted.

The Gauteng DoHS confirmed that it had obtained a court order to evict the illegal occupants of the houses.

The spokesperson for the City of Ekurhuleni, Zweli Dlamini, said the city has no intention of returning people to an area that is a flood risk. However, the city does not have a place to relocate people who are not known as to where they come from.

He said the state of disaster was not declared for Palm Ridge extensions under the Disaster Management Act.

“When disasters are declared by the presidency, they are specific to the area because it happened in KwaZulu-Natal,” said Dlamini.