Brandvlei protest: residents demand houses
Reports received indicate that a family was trapped in their home near the Brandvlei crossing while violent protests raged out of control.
Residents of the Siyahlala informal settlement in Brandvlei took to the streets on 23 April demanding that houses built behind the informal settlement be released for occupancy.
The houses have been standing vacant for more than two years already and contractors were hired last year to repair damage as most of the houses were badly vandalised.
Residents blockaded roads in the are with burning tyres and schooling at the local primary school was interrupted.
According to residents of the area, their anger and frustrations emanate from the fact that the Randfontein Local Municipality has been ignoring their pleas for proper services and houses.
“The Randfontein Local Municipality is taking us for fools and we will not have it any longer,” says one irate resident.
“They have built houses behind our settlement and those houses remain unoccupied whilst we are living in shacks.
“This just goes to show that the council is dangling a carrot in front of our eyes.
“They have no intention of placing us in those houses and for that we will wreak havoc.”
Police maintained a high level of visibility in the area and were forced to fire rubber bullets in an effort to control the the violent crowd.
Despite efforts of police to control the situation, it was the rain that came to the rescue and caused the angry crowd to scatter and seek shelter.
According to Randfontein municipal spokesperson, Lucky Chiya, the municipality cannot simply allocate houses to residents of the area.
“People need to understand that we cannot give away houses because we do not have the authority to do so. That duty lies with the Department of Local Government and Housing.
“People need to be aware that they should have applied for houses and be listed on the demand database for housing prior to their receiving any houses,” says Chiya.
Iam so happy about our Randfontein news paper.keep it up by giving us information especcially for the jobseekers.l wish that RANDFONTEIN MUNICIPALITY can do the same job as your but atleast they try even if they fail to make a plan about the people that are bussy steeling the town drainholes leads..PLEASE RANDFONTEIN SCRAPYARDS STOP BUYING MUNICIPAL DRAINLEADS CAUSE THIS THING IS GOING TO COST OUR MUNICIPALITY MORE MONEY FOR USELESS THINGS..we can recycle by papers or plastic in order to keep our beautyfull RANDFONTEIN CLEAN NOT TO STEEL DRAINSLEADS.CAUSE THE WHOLE TOWN IS OPEN..WHAT ABOUT VEHICLES OR OUR KIDS THEN??IESH I AM WORRIED ABOUT THIS!!!!!!
I am constable at Randfontein saps..( DRUGS TASK TEAM)as a parent I am so worried about drugs around Randfontein…especially NNYAOPE..please Randfontein residents becarefull of your kids..most of them they are drugs users.how can you feell to arrest more than tweenty kids every week??as a police officers our aim is not just to grab and put in jail…we try by all means so that some of them they can went to rehabilitation..but is still the same we also re-arrest them im position of those drugs..one thing is certain…I wont hesitate to insist that most of the drug dealers are foreighners..I used to arrest them especially TANZANIANS AND NIGERIANS..and they dont even smoke this nonsense but they sell this to our own kids…and their kids also they dont smoke this drugs..their aim is to destroy our childrens future..they dont even care cause they make a lot of money by selling this stuff so that their kids can get better education at model c.schools..(I dont put this opinion in order to hate foreighners)but please they must stop This..BUT AS A POLICE OFFICER MY VIRSION IS TO MAKE SURE THAT CRIMINALS ARE BROUGHT IN JAIL AND MY MISSION IS TO PUT SOUTH AFRICA AS SAFETY PLACE…I WONT HERSITATE TO DO MY JOB…IM SO WORRIED ABOUT THIS DRUGS IM RANDFONTEIN…ANYONE WITH INFOTMATION CORNCERNING DRUGS CALL(011)7672300..RANDFONTEIN SAPS..THANK YOU