The African National Congress (ANC) must be blamed for the Hammanskraal chaos, north of Pretoria, which has left at least two people dead, the Democratic Alliance (DA)said on Wednesday.
“We want to lay this squarely at the door of the ANC. I was here in the early hours on Monday, I had been called at around 4am and was told that there is violence and unrest,” said Solly Msimanga the DA Gauteng North regional chairperson.
Msimanga told reporters in Hammanskraal that he “met people who said they had been told by an ANC councillor here” that they have the right to occupy that piece of land.
“It goes even worse because there are those (squatters) who are claiming that they paid something like R2,000, R2,500 or R3,000 per stand,” said Msimanga.
“One gentleman told me that he has bought a piece of land and the following day when he came to put up a structure, there was somebody already there on the ground. That means that land had already been sold to somebody else.”
Msimanga said corruption had caused the violence which left two workers, who were attempting to evict the squatters, dead.
“This is something that the ANC could have stepped in [to stop] early. The ANC could have made sure that they responded to the people and addressed the issues right from the beginning. They failed to do that, and that is why we ended up having people being murdered on the ground,” said Msimanga.
The DA Tshwane mayoral candidate said he was against “people just jumping on a piece of land, occupying it and thereafter demanding that there should be services”.
He said land should be identified and serviced before people move in.
“We want to make sure that we identify all open pieces of land in Tshwane. After doing that land audit, we will say ‘How much does it cost if we are to put services on those pieces of ground?
“We will go into community and identify people that are in need of housing or shelter. We will such a list to start allocating people into those pieces of land. That is how you avoid corruption,” said Msimanga.
He said residents should be given title deeds of the land they live on.
“People should not be moved around when government feels like doing that. People can use that land as leverage if they want to borrow money. That is what we intend doing when we take over,” said Msimanga.
He said in the Hammanskraal scenario, government should either find an alternative piece of land or the squatters should not be moved from the land they occupied.
“I think the situation now calls for extra unusual measures. We cannot say we need to go and visit the textbook on how we are going to resolve this,” said Msimanga.
Meanwhile, police vehicles were patrolling the Hammanskraal streets, which were still difficult to travel on owing to the rubble left by protesters. Motorists had to drive around all kinds of obstacles on the roads including piles of dirt.
On Monday, the Tshwane municipality issued a statement condemning the protest which was sparked after residents resisted efforts to evict them. They fought off workers from the eviction agency better known as the Red Ants.
Two workers from the Red Ants lost their lives in the violent skirmishes.
“The executive mayor of Tshwane Kgosientso Ramokgopa, received with a heavy heart, news of the violent protest that erupted in Hammanskraal and how it has deteriorated,” Tshwane spokesperson Blessing Manale said.
“This despite the progressive roll-out of various programmes including Re Aga Tshwane aimed at promoting security of tenure and rolling out services to enhance the quality of lives of citizens.
“We remain deeply concerned by the acts of violence, displacements, confrontations, loss of property and gross disregard, as well as violation of human rights every time evictions take place,” Manale said.
Manale said the city understood that the evictions “leave behind a trail of pain, which could be avoided and minimised, as we treated even those of our ungovernable citizens with respect rather than a sense of punishment”.
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