Durban - The Msunduzi Municipality will take its chances and apply for a blanket interdict against land invaders on all municipal land, despite advice from its legal department that it might lose.
The council’s executive committee met on Thursday and gave the municipal manager, Mxolisi Nkosi, the green light to approach the high court in light of a string of invasions this year.
Nkosi said that a similar interdict had been obtained by the eThekwini Municipality and it would be taking notes on how to go about approaching the court. Other municipalities had also been successful and Nkosi was confident that Msunduzi would follow suit.
Land invasions could get worse if the city did nothing.
DA councillor Bill Lambert said: “We should be proactive and identify land that could be occupied. We could take preventative measures.” Mayor Chris Ndlela said the leaders of invasions played on the emotions of people who really wanted and needed land.
With a blanket interdict, it meant the city would not waste time and resources. When a land invasion was taking place, it would just go and demolish the structures.
People were banking on the processes of the law being slow when they invaded land.
Mduduzi Mbokazi, the assistant legal adviser in the municipality’s legal department, said the parties to legal proceedings must be clearly identified in name or be capable of being identified during the course of proceedings. A court would not agree to an interdict if it was sought against persons not clearly identified.
“It is for this reason that it is sometimes said that an interdict cannot be obtained against the world,” said Mbokazi.
Such an interdict application would not succeed.
The Mercury