For the past few years, Ward 28 councillor, Jean Kotze has been battling to get Mogale City to step up and assist the people in his ward.
As part of a temporary urgent housing solution some families were moved to the Pikoko informal settlement situated in Ruimsig North in 2004.
Kotze said what started as 23 shacks quickly became more than a thousand.
Driving by the settlement, it is clear why urgent intervention is needed. The boundary wall between the settlement and the driving range had been broken down and residents started building on the range.
The stench is unbearable as sewage runs into the streets and collect in stagnant puddles around the settlement. The amount of uncollected refuse seems to have become unmanageable and even the designated areas where rubbish should be dumped are overflowing.
Illegal electricity connections can be seen throughout the settlement as water and electricity lines have been hijacked by residents.
“These people can’t live like this,” a frustrated Kotze explained.
He added that more than 50 per cent of the residents from this settlement are foreign nationals and that lawlessness has reached breaking point in recent years.
Residents of the affluent area of Ruimsig have been dealing with theft, break-ins, prostitution and drugs.
There are those in the settlement who sell stands to the poor and once they have put up their shacks, they have to pay monthly rent. The land belongs to Mogale City and nobody else is allowed to sell it.
Kotze believes that Home Affairs needs to do a census in the settlement, and the South Africans need to be relocated to an area where proper services have been set up.
“My responsibility is to the South African citizens,” he said, explaining that illegal immigrants are making the situation more difficult and need to be removed.
Unfortunately Pikoko is not Kotze’s only headache. Just down the road, next to Cradlestone Mall, is the Taxi House settlement where illegal electricity connections are running across the road. According to Kotze, children have died because of these dangerous illegal connections.
The problem with Taxi House is that the land belongs to a private company and has been reserved for the construction of a new highway.
“Although Mogale City cannot take responsibility for the property, they are still responsible for enforcing by-laws,” Kotze said, adding that people phone him to ask what is being done about Pikoko and Taxi House. They get mad when they do not get results, but he believes that Mogale City needs to take responsibility for the well-being of the people living on the land.
The News contacted Mogale City Local Municipality (MCLM) to get clarity regarding these settlements and received a statement from Shimi Phate, Human Settlements and Real Estate Management Manager.
He acknowledged that the two settlements fall within the jurisdiction of MCLM.
“Pikoko settlement next to Ruimsig Golf Club was inherited from the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) after the 2016 Local Government Elections. As such, no proper documentation (detailing the settlement) have been received despite numerous attempts by MCLM. We have been made aware that CoJ will continue to provide services to the settlement; however, MCLM had played a minimal role by posting security guards to patrol the site to ensure that no additional shacks are built,” was the answer to the question of what is being done about these settlements.
He explained that the property next to Cradlestone Mall where Taxi House is located does not belong to Mogale City and that the onus is on the land owner to help root out any illegal activities and provide services to the occupants.
He said MCLM was not aware of the Pikoko residents’ attempts to move onto the Ruimsig Golf Club premises, but that such allegation would warrant an investigation.
When asked if provincial government should get involved in the matter, he answered, “Surely, MCLM doesn’t have enough resources to deal with mushrooming informal settlements. Support from the provincial government would be highly appreciated.”
