BARBERTON – Attempts to evacuate illegal squatters from Kosovo Villa has failed on several occasions, despite a court interdict in favour of the council.
The municipality even went to an extent of sending the Red Ants to demolish the shacks, only to find that it was a waste of time and energy since the community members went back after a few days and rebuilt their shelters.
This publication revisited the section over the weekend and discovered that there’s no sign of any improvement in terms of services.
Some of the shacks that were erected, were unoccupied, collapsed and some of them were still left incomplete with long grass and could be mistaken as a kraal.
Early last year this section was a haven for criminals, especially those that boarded buses at early dawn, as they robbed commuters of their valuables.
Speaking to this publication, the leader of Umjindi Community Forum, who was in the forefront of the establishment of the settlement, Mr Vusi “Snopo” Gwebu, said even though things might seem to be going slow, the forum will stick to its guns. He said,
“Kosovo Villa is here to stay, like it or not.
“We are starting the new year and we are going to meet as a forum where we will discuss where to from here since we won all the court cases that were faced by some of our members. People must not lose hope as we are going to do our best to ensure that we finish what we started because a number of people still need houses,” Gwebu pointed out.
He added that they are aware that there are people who decided to abandon their shacks because they were uncertain of their future there.
When this journalist visited the section, numerous shacks were spotted with “EFF Cosovo” written on them which led people to believe that the area was for Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters.
Regarding that, Gwebu said,
“It’s not established for our members only, even ordinary people are welcome because when we established this area, our aim was not to score political points, but it was for the community interest since there are people who have waited for a very long time to get RDP houses or stands. We are living in a free country where a person is free to represent her or his political party, even ordinary people who need shelter are here as we are not pushing political agendas.”
