Disgruntled Mamelodi flood victims took to the streets of Pretoria on Wednesday demanding the Tshwane metro relocate them from a community hall in Nellmapius to a permanent alternative.

The protesters, who marched from Church Square to Tshwane House, said they had been waiting for too long for the metro to relocate them.

They warned that failure to do so could result in them resorting to a land grab.

“We are frustrated because we cannot stay at the hall forever. We want our right to privacy to be respected,” one of the protest leaders, David Scholtz, told Rekord.

He said the hall was not appropriate for women, children and men to live together.

Scholtz said about 600 people were sleeping in the same hall.

“All we can do is to have separate sections for men and women.”

He said the space was not conducive for the number of people in the hall, especially when considering that the country is still facing the Covid-19 pandemic.

The squatter camp residents were relocated to the hall (a temporary shelter) after heavy rains earlier this month made them flood victims for the third time since 2019.

“This February we had the worst flood compared to the previous two floods in 2019. The recent flood was more than 2m while 2019 was around 1.8m.”

Reading the letter of demands, another protest leader, Gugu Sikhosana, said the flood victims had been waiting for the metro for too long to relocate them, citing that they could not tolerate it anymore.

“We hereby inform you that we will relocate ourselves to any space owned by the City of Tshwane,” Sikhosana read the memorandum.

They accused the human settlements MMC Abel Tau of “selling out” the Mamelodi flood victims.

Tau, however, denied the allegations and assured the residents that, together with the metro, they were working on the matter.

“We are working on the relocation plan,” Tau said.

He said they wanted to relocate the flood victims as well as solve the problem of informal settlements in Mamelodi.

“It is in the public domain that the land that had been earmarked for the relocation purpose has some problems and investigation around that issue is underway,” he said.

“My role should be to try and find an alternative as to how we do it.”

He said he, however, understood the frustration of the people emanating from the long waiting.

Tau, who has been working as MMC since December 14 last year, said his objective was to have the relocation problem completely resolved by October this year.

“October is a realistic target,” he said.