By Wendy Jasson da Costa
All provinces in the country are to formulate legislation equivalent to that of the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act, prompting threats of widespread civil unrest from community organisations in the Western Cape and Gauteng.
The announcement by housing MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu comes even though KZN's "pioneering" legislation is the subject of a court challenge by shack dwellers under the umbrella of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement which wants the legislation scrapped.
Mabuyakhulu's spokesperson, Lennox Mabaso, recently said the decision that KZN assist other provinces in formulating legislation was made after discussions by Minmec, a committee made up of the housing minister and all provincial MECs.
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He said the Western Cape was drafting its own laws assisted by KZN, and Gauteng had also started the process.
He said they hoped to prevent people from settling on land from which communities had been moved with the Eradication and Prevention of the Re-emergence of Slums Act.
Eradicate
He added that KwaZulu-Natal had 603 informal settlements, of which 503 were in Durban, and they hoped to eradicate most of them, if not all, by 2014.
Abahlali spokesperson Mnikelo Ndabankulu called on other provinces not to accept the South African version of Operation Murambatsvina or "clean up the filth", referring to a campaign in Zimbabwe in which thousands of people were left homeless.
He said it was a clear sign of apartheid laws being imposed in a democratic era.
Dale McKinley, of the Gauteng-based Anti-privatisation Forum, warned that the government could be heading for a "class war" if it imposed such legislation in the province.
He cited the example of Tembelihle, in the south-west of Johannesburg, where there was a "war on the street for several days" when police tried to remove about 5 000 people who had settled on vacant land in 2002.
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