MUST READ: Red Ant opens up about eviction experience
JOBURG – Known for their no-holds-barred methods of carrying out land and property evictions, the Red Ants are known far and wide. One employee speaks up about the harsh realities that they face as they battle to make ends meet.
The Red Ant [Security Relocation and Eviction Services] have garnered a fearsome reputation for their heavy-handed approach to evictions of properties and land known, or suspected to be illegally occupied.
MARSHALING THE TROOPS: Red Ant workers are led into a property to rid it of its occupants and belongings during an eviction in the Johannesburg CBD. Photo: Tshepiso Mametela
This became apparent during another eviction conducted on Lilian Ngoyi Street in the Johannesburg CBD on 23 June, more than two weeks after an eviction in a neighbouring abandoned building, where a pregnant woman was allegedly gang raped last month. Recent reports alleging that a Red Ant employee was fatally stabbed and two others injured during forced evictions in Lenasia (south of Johannesburg) on 15 June, have surfaced. In an exclusive interview with City Buzz, one Red Ant employee spoke about some of the challenges he has faced over the past several months while conducting evictions. “I’ve attended more than 20 evictions in the last six months or so,” he said, following recent evictions in Pretoria, Lenasia and Meadowlands – neighbouring Johannesburg – and Ogies and Piet Retief in Mpumalanga.
“When we [evict] people, it’s not that we like to do so but it’s our duty since we don’t have something else to work for.”
THICK OF ACTION: Red Ant workers take turns to empty the building of both people and their belongings during an eviction in the Johannesburg CBD. Photo: Tshepiso Mametela
The employee said putting food on the table was the main reason he took up a job at the company, which enforces municipal and private ownership orders of demolition or evictions. He added that the government should do more to provide housing for South Africa’s marginalised. “If the government considers [a specific demographic] of people living in South Africa, maybe people will be placed where they are supposed to be living. Sometimes people live where the government hasn’t given them a place.
“For example, if a mall needs to be built in an area where people are living illegally, it’s an opportunity for the Red Ant to do an eviction, and afterwards we can post our CVs so that we can get work from that mall. So the government must do projects we, as South African citizens, can benefit from.”
The Red Ants have said that they don’t speak to the media, nor do they have a media liaison officer.
