John Sibiya, the squatter who is allegedly running a business from a residential area illegally, believes there are more important matters to worry about than his illicit trading.
John, who has been operating on the corner of Vorster Street and Naudé Avenue in Krugersdorp West is still squatting there and is quite content about it. The News reported about John and his business in its 18 November edition.
The ward councillor for this area (Ward 26), Louis Whitey Moleba, informed the News that he did take action and that the dump site adjacent to where John is squatting was recently cleaned.
According to John the municipality only cleaned around him and they did not care about his belongings.
“I am still waiting for feedback from stakeholders to help me remove the squatter. I am trying my best and will keep on trying until this matter is resolved,” Louis said.
John, however, is not happy about the News’ article.
“Why are you always targeting me and not the other people?” he asked.
John is not concerned about the laws he is breaking or about what his neighbours have to say. He feels that the garage next to ‘his’ property is more dangerous than his squatting. The garage wall belonging to his next-door neighbour allegedly has cracks and he fears the wall might collapse onto his property. He estimated the value of ‘his’ property is R60 000. John also alleged that the local Community Policing Forum (CPF) members had burnt down his property in February and he has had several threats from them since.
He opened a case against the CPF at the police station for burning down his property, but has not received any feedback yet.
The News spoke to one of John’s neighbours and he is not happy at all.
“The squatter is constantly burning materials and there is always smoke in my house. Crime around us has also increased over the past few months,” said James Jonk.
He also told the News that they fear that the number of squatters could increase, because if one could do it, why not the others? What concerns the residents the most is the value of their property decreasing and the number of crime incidents increasing.
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