Kya Sands faces a number of challenges – MMC Lloyd Phillips
KYA SAND – MMC of Economic Development Lloyd Phillips visited Kya Sands informal settlement on 3 April.
Johannesburg Mayor Geoff Makhubo was joined by various City officials in his survey of Kya Sands informal settlement to see if lockdown regulations were being adhered to on 3 April.
MMC of Economic Development Lloyd Phillips said the state of informal settlements during the lockdown period, and in general, were of grave concern.
“We came out to assess the situation that the informal settlement is facing. It was great to give the mayor and other City officials a first-hand look at what challenges the people are facing during this lockdown period,” said Phillips.
He added that the response to Covid-19 was a challenging one facing the country’s informal settlements.
Challenges noted included densely populated areas with many people living in close proximity to one another, as well as multiple people sharing single homes.
“The people live on top of one another, and there is a massive issue with the state and sharing of ablution facilities,” he continued.
Phillips also noted that social distancing measures were hard to conduct and enforce.
“The spaces that people live in do not allow for proper social distancing measures. We have to go back to the drawing board urgently to see what interventions we can come up with to alleviate the situation to do some space optimisation to get the people to separate themselves properly.”
Phillips concluded that for now, all the City could do was trust that somehow, until the proper interventions were put into place, that people would use their initiative to adhere to the laws that have been put in place.
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