Glenda Daniels
Brutal forced removals are taking place in Thokoza, but local councillors are making no apologies for the lack of humanity involved.
Gauteng provincial government officials are abdicating responsibility, saying “it’s an autonomous local government issue”.
Councillor for Thokoza ward 21, Mahlomola Mabote, says: “I’ve heard many times I am responsible for what is happening. Nobody is responsible except for the officials of the country. This unit is only on the border of my area.”
Gauteng MEC for Housing Paul Mashatile says he has no knowledge of the forced evictions in Thokoza.
“I’m not even aware that that is going on there. It’s probably a local government matter. I don’t know the details so I can’t even say whether this is right or wrong.
“Local authorities are independent of provinces. They take specific decisions that do not require intervention from the province.”
Mabote laid the blame on Mashatile’s department, saying the evictions were taking place because the land was earmarked for development by the Gauteng government.
“But these people went and paid R50 a site to someone, we don’t know who, to get land and they started erecting shacks. It’s illegal and not acceptable. There’s no excuse to be so stupid and avail themselves to scavengers. It’s unacceptable to me,” Mabote said.
The evicted squatters say the R50 they collected was to raise funds for urgent legal help. They did not pay for the right to live there.
Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa’s representative, Thabo Masebe, said: “[The] government has to take action so that people don’t illegally own land. The position of the government is that the sooner you act the better. If you leave it for longer you are forced to provide alternative accommodation.”
Yet in terms of the law, the government is required to provide alternative accommodation. However, different recent judgements depend on judges’ interpretation of the Constitution, says Legal Resources Centre lawyer Steve Kahanowitz.
For instance, courts cannot decide whether a structure is considered a home when people invade land and build on it. Sometimes, depending on “relevant circumstances”, such as how many children are involved, evictions have been stopped and ended in discussions.
“But what seems to be emerging from the courts is less defence for people against their evictions than a year ago. All this revolves around interpretation of the Constitution,” Kahanowitz says.
Besides the legal problems, where there is often restrictive interpretation, the issue is a difficult development one too, he says. There is also the problem of how quickly people can get access to legal help, he says.
The Pan Africanist Congress and the Democratic Alliance have slammed the African National Congress government for allowing forced removals to happen in a democratic country.
“The more things change the more they stay the same. When I hear about this happening I get so angry. I wish I could put on my takkies right now and get down there to save those poor people,” says the PAC’s Patricia de Lille.
“I blame the national government for this. They cannot allow councillors to violate the constitutional rights of people this way. It will lead to anarchy. The courts have ordered that there must be alternative accommodation found before people are evicted, or at least a transit camp.”
The DA’s Gauteng provincial caucus leader Brian Goodall says the forced removals seem like the old National Party’s operations.
“We accept that sometimes people have to be moved, for instance if they are on the water line and cholera is the problem. But it’s the way in which you do it that’s important. More sensitivity is needed; there has to be another place that is equipped and ready. It’s appalling that this is happening.”
Minister of Housing Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele admits that the government has been destroying informal settlements in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Western Cape. But she adds this should be done with the agreement that squatters be rehoused elsewhere.
“We have built through social compacts and negotiations with communities to fold up their shacks so that if a family moves to a new home, a [Reconstruction and Development Programme] home, the area is not burdened by people perpetuating the site and the blight of informal settlement.”
The South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) investigated the removals in Alexandra township last week and concluded that the residents’ right to dignity, access to shelter and children’s right to education were potentially being violated in the process of the relocations.
It has written to Mashatile, asking for an urgent meeting with him to discuss issues that arose from their investigation.
“The HRC would like to unequivocally state that it supports the urban renewal plans and particularly the good intentions that the Department of Housing had in terms of moving persons living in unsafe and unhealthy conditions to a more environmentally safe area. However, the manner in which this move has been executed has proven to be unsatisfactory and has had the effect of violating the rights of the very people they intended to assist,” an HRC statement read.
Additional reporting by Barry Streek