Durban - A tsunami of rural people from across South Africa, all wanting jobs and decent education for their children, is flooding into Durban, resulting in a proliferation of shacks.
The shanty dwellings are going up faster than the eThekwini Municipality can break them down, with the newcomers invading land earmarked for low-cost housing for locals who have waited years.
The municipality believes shack lords are feeding the frenzy. Those who have been identified live in houses in uMhlanga and Durban North, funding their lifestyles through the illegal sale of plots.
These small areas of land, where the desperate and poor erect shacks, can sell for up to R20 000.
Apparently fuelling the problem are taxi operators, who are eager to develop new routes, and drug dealers who allegedly see it as a way of expanding their trade.
Provincial Human Settlements spokesman Mbulelo Baloyi said the situation was volatile, with tension simmering between invaders and “rightful” low-cost house beneficiaries who were also living in the informal settlements.
Referring to the ongoing development in Cato Crest, he said: “A portion of land was identified and 1 500 houses are to be built.
“About 900 houses have already been built, but there are currently 3 000 people living there (who want houses). The remaining 1 500 came to the area after the programme was initiated.”
Baloyi said communities needed to “protect their areas”, but that was not happening. Near Westridge Secondary School, he said, there was the sound of hammering every day as people built new shacks.
The municipality’s Land Invasion Control Unit, which falls under the metro police, has placed the shack dwellers’ lobby group Abahlali baseMjondolo and its leader, S’bu Zikode, at the top of its list of perpetrators of this “orchestrated land invasion”.
But Zikode has denied the allegation, saying his organisation was also against the building of new shacks.
The Land Invasion Control Unit’s senior manager, Skhumbuzo Vilakazi, said currently the municipality had about 600 new shacks to deal with and 10 of them were being built every day.
He said municipal staff were being attacked by well-armed crowds when they tried to stop invasions. The unit had a responsibility to protect state and private land, he said.
Vilakazi said in August alone the unit demolished 78 shacks and attended to 10 land invasion cases.
“Desperate people are charged for their plot but then get no receipt as proof of payment. They are told ‘no one will evict you because this is our forefathers’ land’,” he said.
Among new settlements identified as hot spots were Marikana in Cato Crest, Mini Town in Hammarsdale, part of Mount Edgecombe, Lamontville and Matikwe in Inanda.
“As soon as these shack lords and the people they sell to learn that land will be developed, they move in.
“They do it to stall development until they are prioritised for low-cost housing allocations,” he said.
“Mini Town in Hammarsdale has been earmarked for low-cost housing and a big shopping mall. Now people are putting up shacks in that area.”
Vilakazi’s colleague, Harvey Mzimela, said in Makhutha (south of Durban), people were charged R6 000 for land. Most had built proper houses using bricks, which had been demolished by the municipality.
He said Abahlali and others like them were worsening the problem, as they went to rural areas to recruit people to come to the city.
“Abahlali has a website which connects them with the world and they raise funds with sympathetic international organisations.
“Access to funds makes it easy for them to challenge any court application for eviction, which prevents us from evicting people until the matter is finalised in court,” he said.
But Zikode said his organisation was only protecting people who had been shack dwellers for more than 20 years.
He denied he was raising funds internationally, saying the organisation relied on sympathetic lawyers to fight “unlawful” evictions.
“If the municipality fails to find a mechanism to prevent new shacks being erected, they must not blame Abahlali,” he said.
Mnikelwa Ndabankulu, a spokesman for the Mayibuye People’s Movement, also denied there was an orchestration of land grabs.
“A person, immediately after finishing matric, decides where they want to migrate to – whether to Durban, Joburg or the Cape – to look for a job. That applies to anyone, be they from Nongoma, Nquthu or wherever,” he said.
People resorted to land invasions out of frustration and politicians’ “broken promises”, he said.
The Mercury