The Democratic Alliance has moved a motion in the Cape Town city council asking for the informal settlement in District Six to be moved as soon as possible.
”The conflict over the accommodation of squatters in District Six must be squarely blamed on the ANC’s failure to deliver on the empty land restitution promises it made for the area at the time of the last local government elections,” DA MP James Masango said on Tuesday.
He was responding to media reports that irate District Six residents threatened to burn the shacks of more than 30 squatter families relocated to land in the area.
The Cape Times reported city police and council workers moved trailer-loads of dismantled shacks onto the land on Monday.
According to council human settlement services director Seth Maqetuka, the relocation was temporary until permanent accommodation could be provided.
Masango said there should not have been any empty land in District Six for an illegal settlement of this kind in the first place. By now it should have been developed for the thousands of people who lost their homes there in apartheid-era forced removals.
Some claimants had waited for nearly a decade to have their land returned or to be compensated for their losses.
”It is amazing that while District Six has stood virtually empty the ANC government is expropriating land from farmers in other parts of the country to make way for land claims,” he said.
Through its inaction and its decision to place informal settlements on the land, the council had displayed insensitivity towards the historic significance of the area, and had risked causing violent confrontations.
The District Six claimants’ rights were being ignored, while those who jumped the gun and illegally occupied ground were being encouraged.
”The DA’s Belinda Walker has put forward a motion in the City Council to have the informal settlement relocated as soon as possible to an area that has not been marked for restitution and to make sure that no further land invasion is allowed.
”We hope that the mayor will take this seriously. The DA will also be asking questions in national Parliament on what the government intends to do about District Six,” Masango said. – Sapa