EFF claims responsibility for land grab in Boksburg
The EFF is not backing down and challenged the municipality to bring it on with its EMPD and Red Ants – saying they would continue occupying the property for as long as the demands of the people living in dangerous areas are not met.
The chairperson of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Ward 21, Callman Morena, has confirmed that they are responsible for the invasion of the council-owned piece of land next to Life Esidimeni Waverley Care Centre, near Knights Railway Station, over the weekend.
A group of people, the majority of whom are said to have come from Ulana, Makause, Kanana, Jerusalem and Angelo informal settlements, attempted to invade the council-owned piece of land in Knights, sparking widespread criticism from some political parties and concerned residents of the city.
READ STORY: Land grabbing hits home in Boksburg
The piece of land in question is the very land that the municipality recently procured and developed at a cost of more than R34-million to temporarily accommodating the community of Angelo informal settlement.
“It is true that we (representatives of the EFF) led the group of people living in dangerous places in the informal settlements to the land in Marlands and allocated them stands.
“The people I’m talking about are the hundreds of people living in homes that are built on dangerous ground, including flooded areas, old mineshafts and sinkholes that perpetually swallow the earth and people’s shacks,” said Morena.
Morena stated that, as community leaders, they have in the past approached the metro on numerous occasions to explain the plight of the affected residents of the informal settlements, and even requested that they are allocated new stands or included in the Marlands multi-million rand project.
The municipality apparently turned a deaf ear to such requests, and that prompted the red berets leaders in the area to then place the about 300 affected people in the completed prefabricated houses in Marlands.
“After we came to realise that the people of Angelo were not at all interested in moving into this temporary accommodation, we then, at that time, decided to put the desperate families there, but the municipality reacted by deploying the Red Ants to evict those families. People were beaten up like donkeys during the evictions,” said Morena.
It was again on May 12 that the EFF-led group returned to the property and started allocating stands among themselves. But they were again disrupted by the police.
“We have compiled a database of about 300 families who are in need of urgent relocation because they are sick and tired of living on the flooded and sinkhole riddled areas. -@MthuphaFanie
