Watch: Joburg residents march for housing

A few hundred community members from across Gauteng marched through the streets of central Johannesburg on Wednesday, demanding an update on the Rapid Land Release Programme which was introduced in 2017.

They also called for transparency on the Mega Housing Project which was launched in 2015.

Singing and chanting as they made their way demonstrators held placards with slogans such as “Release land now” and “End evictions!”

Eldorado Park community member Pastor Gaynor Williams expressed frustration at the housing backlog: “There are many young ladies in my area who sleep under trees each night. They are being attacked, raped and murdered regularly because there is nowhere for them to stay. Sometimes there are 20 people sleeping in one small flat. There is sewage in people’s yards. There is just hell in my community. That is abuse!”

The community wished to see Gauteng Premier David Makhura specifically to remind him of promises he made at a mass rally in Eldorado Park in 2017 regarding the crisis.

The Premier has noted that the Gauteng housing challenge continues to be one of the main areas of concern for residents.

Chief Glen Bennett, a participant who led the march dressed in traditional regalia, explains he was in Vlakfontein a week ago, and says the community is still using the bucket toilet system, which he says are only emptied once a month.

“We want to tell the office of the Premier that we are sick and tired of the lies that we have been fed for all these years,” exclaimed angry Eldorado Park resident Phillip Ratson. “The homeless need houses. It is our constitutional right to have houses and to have water.

“A man without land might as well be classed as a foreigner, because we don’t feel we even belong in this country.”

If their demands are not met, the communities say they will mobilise across Gauteng to physically occupy the Gauteng Legislature.

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