Pietermaritzburg - Despite an order stopping them from entering the property, land invaders at Harewood in Pietermaritzburg continue to flout the law and now face criminal action against them.
Msunduzi Municipality’s deputy municipal manager for economic development, Raymond Ngcobo, said on Monday that the municipality was in the process of laying charges of damage to municipal property, intimidation and impersonating a municipal official against the land grabbers.
The municipality approached the city’s high court with an application for an urgent interim order on Friday to stop invaders from entering the property, located at Plessislaer.
The court order named 11 people who formed a committee (Izwilamadoda committee), who say they have a land claim on the property and are allegedly offering plots for sale between R8 000 and R40 000.
Harewood is municipal land that has been earmarked for the development of 1000 low-cost houses.
The interim order granted restrains the committee members from entering or occupying the land and from threatening municipal officials. The case was adjourned to February 19 when the invaders are expected to oppose the order.
However Ngcobo said committee members were still spotted on the land even after the order was granted on Friday.
“It appears they are holding a number of meetings to decide what to do. They are in a real dilemma now because they have taken innocent people’s money and don’t know how to pay it back. The municipality has backed them into a corner,” Ngcobo said.
He confirmed that the municipality was working with Plessislaer police to monitor the situation at Harewood.
When confronted by municipal officials, the committee members said they were entitled to the land because it belonged to their forefathers.
However, Ngcobo said he had established from the regional land claims commission that no one had instituted a land claim relating to Harewood.
This is not the first time the municipality has dealt with aggressive land grabbers.
In November last year, the high court granted an order to evict more than 900 illegal occupiers from municipal land across Pietermaritzburg after an application by the municipality. Since July last year, land invasions had been taking place next to Otto’s Bluff Road in Woodlands, in Lotus Park and on land adjacent to Northdale Stadium.
The Daily News reported on several clashes between land invaders and municipal security and officials over that period.
The municipality filed an application in the high court for the squatters to be removed after they had gathered at the sites and begun clearing vegetation, chopping down trees and building wooden homes.
The squatters claimed that politicians had failed to keep their election promises to provide them with housing.
But the municipality claimed in court papers that a housing policy was in place to assist affected communities, and that the invasion was causing harm as indigenous forests were being destroyed.
Mayor Chris Ndlela himself has labelled land invasions as a “cancer” in society.
Daily News