Johannesburg - About 500 families were evicted amid illegally occupied RDP houses in the Mackenzieville Extension 2 housing project in Nigel, Ekurhuleni.
Yesterday morning, the City of Ekurhuleni executed an eviction against the occupiers, who are known as backyarders.
The RDP houses, according to the municipality, were earmarked for residents in the greater Nigel area, including people from the Snake Park informal settlement.
EMPD spokesperson Constable Ignatius Maphike, commenting on the execution of the eviction order against unlawful occupants, said the situation is calm.
She said the occupants were not resisting and were compliant.
Maphika said the occupants had moved their furniture out of the houses, while some had made arrangements to get pick-up trucks to collect their furniture.
“The EMPD is still on site to monitor the situation. No injuries have been reported, and no resistance has been seen from members of the public. So far, members have been peacefully evicted from these illegal homes. We can confirm that 505 houses were illegally occupied, of which 200 were legal occupants. It received the RDP houses from the human settlement department,” Maphike said.
One of the residents of the Snake Park informal settlement who lives in a two-room shack said he and his family are expecting to occupy their new home soon.
The Gauteng Department of Human Settlements confirmed to The Star that about 1.1 million people are on the national needs register for the province.
The department said this demand stems from 1996 to date, and there are also new needs for housing being registered daily.
“Various factors contribute to this backlog, including urbanisation and rapid in-migration from other provinces, a shrinking fiscus, and a lack of suitable land in the province,” said the department’s spokesperson, Tahir Sema.
Sema said land invasion is rife and is a serious challenge in all regions across the province.
“Johannesburg is the most affected region, with a high number of invasions,” said Sema.
Sema said the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements, in conjunction with the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development, has developed a land invasion strategy that will guide joint efforts to combat further land invasion.
“As a government, we have ongoing efforts across the province to deliver sustainable human settlements but are limited by available resources; the department can only provide a limited number of housing opportunities through various initiatives on an annual basis, as we are facing a moving target,” he said.
The Star