New city land grab

Land invasions continue to be a problem in Pietermaritzburg with the latest being on private property in Old Greytown Road.

Hundreds of people in ward 30 invaded the land over the weekend.

ALSO READ | Kokstad Municipality mayor deals with land invasions head-on

The land grabbers, believed to be from the Swapo informal settlement, started marking out their sites on Sunday and continued on Monday.

Ward councillor
While it is still unclear who the land owner is, ward councillor Rachel Soobiah confirmed to The Witness that the land is privately owned and that they are working with the municipality to try and find the owner of the land.

She said they are concerned that if the land grabbers are not stopped immediately, it will have a negative impact on the area and will force residents, who are living nearby, to vacate their homes.

READ MORE
Surprise find: flamingo in Winterton
We need to work together as the municipality and the owners of the land need to come on board. We [she and the municipality] had a meeting and what came out of it is that the owner needs to get a court order to stop the residents from invading the land and to state that if they invade the land they will be prosecuted.
“They also need to open up cases. This is the only way that we are going to stop this land invasion.

“Because of the land invasion, you will see some of the residents vacating [their properties] and this is going to have a negative impact on the whole area.

“Since this is privately owned land there is nothing much that I or the municipality can do about it,” she said.

Land invaders
Meanwhile, the land invaders said that they will wait for the people who claim to own the land to come and show them a title deed with their names on it, indicating they own the land.

They said they have been looking after the land for years after they realised it had been left unattended.

Speaking to The Witness, they said they started clearing the property in 2019 because it became a hotspot for crime.

They added that no one came to them to ask what they were doing when they cleared the land. They also said that they tried to find out who the land belonged to, but failed.

This whole place was a forest and the grass was so tall. We cleaned it up because this is the route that we use when we are going to the Khan Road Clinic and children walk through here when they are going to school. Criminals used to hide in this place and terrorise the community. There have also been dead bodies that were discovered in this place, that is why we thought having people staying here would assist with the crime.
“Apart from that, we need a place to stay because most of us [have children and] are renting small rooms,” said one of the invaders.

“We need a place and you cannot tell me someone can just leave land unattended to for so long,” said a land invader.

ALSO READ | Spate of land grabs push Msunduzi to swiftly adopt its anti-land invasion policy

When The Witness visited the area yesterday, over 50 people were busy clearing the land and marking out plots. They were using plastic and sticks.

Some of the invaders were also seen digging foundations. At the moment, there are no structures erected on the land.

Msunduzi Municipality spokesperson Ntobeko Mkhize did not respond to questions on the land invasion at the time of publication.