On September 18, a shop was looted in Coronationville by angry residents from Slovo Informal Settlement after their illegal connections were taken down by officers from the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD).
According to Ward Councillor Genevieve Sherman, she was unaware of the officials coming into the area to disconnect the cables.
“From what I heard, it was a process that was requested months ago by the councillor of Ward 58 because of the power outages that both Crosby and Coronationville face.
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“We managed to circumvent the one in Coronationville with the new mini substation that they installed. The new mini substation that they put in place alleviated a lot of the illegal connections,” said the Councillor.
The area which was disconnected was part of Ward 58 and had nothing to do with Ward 69, however, Ward 69 was affected by the angry residents.
“This is going to continue to happen because the project is from the Provincial Government and until they start erecting the structures, we going to sit with these social ills, and these electrical issues. It’s always going to be a thorn in our flesh until these dwellings are built, that’s the only way this issue is going to be resolved.”
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“I feel that if Province isn’t going to build, they should hand the project over to the City so that we can build. They can give us the project and the money and then we will make sure that we build it because ultimately, we going to have to manage it anyways.
“My appeal to the residents is to now hold Province accountable, and this is residents from Coronationville, Crosby and Slovo Park. This back and forth between Province and the City is not helping the community at all and as Councillors, we are saying that we want to help,” added Sherman.
The Councillor said that she’s speaking under correction but she thinks that Slovo Park is over twenty years old and the project has been dragging since 2013/2014.
“We need to eradicate squatter camps, we need to make sure that our people get proper structures to live in. There’s an opportunity now for that to happen because there is money and the project is there at Province,” said the Councillor.
When it comes to the looting issue, the Councillor said that it’s wrong and that it just shows the level of frustration. She added that it’s unfortunate that they taking it out on the shops but they should be addressing province with this issue.
According to communications officer, Jerbes de Bruyn, the spaza shop in Riversdale street, Coronationville lost R80 000 worth of goods. No arrests have been made and a case of public violence was opened.
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