The Rustenburg local municipality in North West has obtained a court order to prevent people from occupying land in Ramochana, executive mayor Mpho Khunou said on Tuesday.
“We have obtained a court order preventing invasion of land in Ramochana. We experience a high number of informal settlements in the Sunrise Park area. We want to acquire land where we could relocate the people and provided them with basic services,” he told reporters in Rustenburg after tabling a R3.8 billion budget.
He said when the local administration took office in 2011, they found that a number of informal settlements were to be evicted.
“We negotiated with land owners and bought land where we relocated the people.”
Last week residents invaded a piece of land near the Rustenburg prison. The municipality then obtain a court order to prohibit them from occupying the land.
There were also reported cases of land grabs in Marikana and Monnakato.
He said Rustenburg had 60 percent of the informal settlements in the North West province.
Tabling the 2016/17 budget, Khunou said the municipality spent R43 million on a number of key initiatives such as acquisition of land as part of informal settlement upgrading programme.
The money was also used for the upgrade of key intersections along Byers Naude Drive to ensure that there was no traffic congestion, and to allow for the construction of pedestrian walkways as well as the refurbishment of the Rustenburg Show Ground.
In line with the budget, property rates would increase by 6.2 percent, electricity by 7.67 percent and refuse removal by six percent.
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