Removal of the Angelo informal settlement still on the cards

The property owners intend to build a world class mixed use and mixed income development on the land over the next five years, a project Living Africa feels will create job opportunities and grow the city’s economy, while also assisting the metro in resolving the housing problem.

“To enable us to rehabilitate the land, more particularly to remove the radio-active mining material, we will have to relocate the informal settlement,’ said James Thomas, of Living Africa.

Thomas said a portion of the land on which the informal settlement is located is reserved for the future Pretoria, Witwatersrand and Vereeniging roads (PWV13 and PWV14).

“Construction of these major provincial routes would, in any event, require the relocation of the informal settlers to another site,” he added.

Living Africa confirmed that it is working with the municipality to find alternative accommodation for Angelo residents.

When asked if this is being done in consultation with the land occupiers, Thomas said: “We have had numerous meetings with the municipality regarding the re-location of the informal settlers, to enable us to rehabilitate and develop the land.

“The most recent of those meetings was on May 20, when we reiterated our preferred approach of an inclusive process in consultation with the informal settlers.

“We expect that consultation process, led by the Ekurhuleni Metro, to begin within the next two months.”

Thomas stated that, subsequent to their meeting with the metro on May 20, his company is expecting to receive an answer from the metro by June 5, as to whether they have found suitable relocation sites.

“Despite the court order providing for eviction on February 1, we anticipate that relocation will take place only in December, this year,” speculated Thomas.

The metro was also approached for comment, but has not yet responded.

Putting residents at ease, the metro previously told this publication that the municipality has a strategic plan in place to mitigate the problem, adding that the human settlement department has already identified alternative land for the relocation of the affected communities.

Following the sad news that their days in the current area are numbered, thousands of residents of the informal settlement marched to the Boksburg Civic Centre to hand over a memorandum of grievances, in November last year.

Residents demanded that the municipality arranges alternative land for them, before an eviction order is carried out.

They, however, state that they will only accept the offer (a new place) on conditions that it is within Boksburg, and each of them is provided with a permanent stand with running water.

“We do not want a temporary relocation area. We want permanent stands. The government have been promising us better lives during electioneering periods, now is the time to deliver.

“The municipality must not tell us that there isn’t enough time to satisfy our demands before the D-day, because we have been for all these years begging them to buy this land and build us RDP houses.

“They should have acted long before the owner decided to evict us,” said one of the community leaders.

– @FanieFLK