Alpoa pins hopes on new City administration to restore deeds
ALEXANDRA – Alpoa banks on the new City administration to solve the land and property rights squabbles in Alexandra.
The Alexandra Land and Property Owners Association (Alpoa) is now banking on the new City of Johannesburg administration to restore Alex land and property rights, which have been a bone of contention for many years.
This emerged at a meeting of members of Alpoa during a feedback session on the road travelled thus far in their more than 30-year struggle in which the post-apartheid administration of the government of South Africa failed to address.
It was only when Alpoa took the government to court in 2005, and a change of political fortunes for sacked Executive Deputy President Jacob Zuma in 2009, that things began to shape up for Alpoa, but not without its pitfalls.
Since Zuma vowed to settle the land and property rights in townships in its centenary celebrations in 2012, there has been very little movement in that direction, which has given rise to a measure of disillusionment among both members and leaders of Alpoa.
But their hopes have been restored and strengthened by the advent of a new Democratic Alliance-led government of the City, which took over the reins following the local government election last August.
Alpoa secretary general Jacky Segopa, told the meeting their hopes were now pinned on the new administration in the City to move faster than its predecessors in settling the matter once and for all.
He called on his members to give the new administration time to find its feet in the corridors of power and said, “I am quite confident they will be eager to settle this matter once and for all as they have already started dishing out title deeds to new recipients elsewhere.”
Segopa said they were giving the new administration up until early February next year to adjust to their office before, he said, “We come knocking on their doors and wanting to know what they intend doing about the land and property rights problems in Alexandra. Their 90 days of adjusting to office comes to an end in January, after which we’re free to approach them and demand answers on the way forward on this saga.”
“I am also sure the DA administration will be keen to settle this issue in order to get one over their predecessors, who were dragging their feet and faking amnesia when it comes to the history of land and property rights in Alex,” added a member of the organisation in the audience.
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