Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has condemned the violent protests in Langa, the City said on Tuesday.
A small group of 30 youth has been causing chaos in Langa as they campaigned for housing allocation for a hostel that was being built in the area to be sped up.
Frustrated at waiting for the hostel, which is in its first phase and one of the Western Cape’s largest projects aimed at redressing past injustices, the youth resorted to violent, destructive means to express their unhappiness.
Their violent actions has caused the City to suspend construction on their flagship hostel transformation project in the township.
“While we respect the rights of residents to protest, this aggressive and illegal behaviour is utterly unacceptable,” Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements Councillor Benedicta van Minnen said.
She said the City had received reports from the project’s steering committee of intimidation.
She stated that their actions “are infringing on the rights of the broader community of Langa”.
Members of the SA Police Service (SAPS) and City Law Enforcement would remain in the area to ensure safety, peace and order in the area.
Van Minnen explained that the City met with the group of disruptive youth to discuss their concerns with them, but the youth have refused to cooperate in this regard, even threatening to inhabit the first few apartments within the hostel, which are now ready for occupation.
To date, 463 units have been built on the Old Depot Site in Langa during the first phase, and over the next five years, 1300 more units would be built as the City attempts to redress and eradicate the “horrific apartheid-era hostels” and the squalid conditions Langa families have had to endure for the past 40 years as they sought a better life when freedom arrived, resulting in an overcrowding of space. The results of this overcrowding has been a “deterioration in the provision of sanitation and ablutions as well as social space available in the hostel precincts,” said van Minnen.
Van Minnen said that this phase of the project would “accommodate all qualifying residents in various hostels such as from the New Flats and Special Quarters areas and also qualifying residents from the Siyahlala informal settlement”.
Blocks and informal structures on the sites earmarked for development would be demolished to make way for Phase 2, and “the balance of households living in the New Flats and Special Quarters hostels will be relocated to the Phase 2 units”.
‘It must be noted that engagements about the allocation of units and the project in general have been in-depth, inclusive and thorough over months. A clear process was agreed upon,” said van Minnen.
“We will not allow this group of protesters, with their narrow and mischievous interests, to delay our project,” she said.
It is expected that the project’s next phase would consider qualifying beneficiaries, including backyarders, from the broader Langa community.
ANA