Two Driefontein residents are crying foul over the KwaDukuza municipality’s (KDM) act of demolishing their almost complete homes last Wednesday.
Busi Nkwanyana and Busi Mpanza houses were demolished by KDM employees who told Nkwanyana’s mother, Mrs Nkwanyana, that they had been illegally building on government land. Mpanza and Nkwanyana said they bought the land from Thabo Madlala in May and started building in July this year.
“When we bought the land Madlala did not say anything about it being already sold to the municipality
because if that had been the case then we would not have bought it,” said Mpanza.
They said they informed ward councillor, Mzwandile Mdluli, about their plans to start building and he did not say anything about the sale of the land. However Mdluli refuted this, saying he cautioned them against illegally occupying government land.
“The land was sold by Madlala’s father to KDM. When I discovered that Nkwanyana and Mpanza had started building despite my warnings, I reported the matter to my superiors and they sent a demolition team,” said Mdluli.
Madlala claims he became a custodian of his father’s land when his father moved to Zululand in 2006. He said it was his responsibility to sell portions of the land to buyers and give the money to his father as he had done on previous occasions.
“My father told me that KDM had approached him with an intent to buy the land but he had not signed the sale agreement as they were still negotiating the price. He would have told me if he had signed the sale agreement,” said Madlala.
Madlala senior refused to comment on the matter and said he would speak to his son if he had anything to say. Meanwhile Nkwanyana and Mpanza said they were in a limbo as whether they should ask for their money and building expenses from
Madlala.
“Our families live in shacks and we were trying to build brick houses for them so that they could be safe from harsh rains that we know are coming in summer but now we are back where we started,” said Nkwanyana.
They said they wished someone from the municipality had given them notice about their demolitions because Mdluli is “lying through his teeth about telling us that we had bought government land”.
KDM had not responded at the time of going to print.
