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- Western Cape Prime Minister Alan Winde has warned that the country is “on the brink of anarchy” with regard to illegal land occupations.
- He said that some political parties and NGOs are helping those who occupy land and buildings illegally.
- According to the DA, around R1.3 billion in “housing opportunities” were lost due to illegal land occupations.
Western Cape Prime Minister Alan Winde warned on Thursday that the country was at a tipping point due to illegal land occupations.
Speaking during a debate in the provincial legislature, he said that many of the illegal occupations were incited by political parties or assisted by NGOs (non-governmental organizations).
He said buildings intended to be converted into social housing were being occupied by people who subsequently refused to leave to continue development.
“The full power of law must come in here,” Winde said.
“And if any member of this house, on this side of the house or on the side of the ruling party or anyone else, we need the rule of law to apply, and those people must face the consequences more severely than anyone else, because We have risen here and signed allegiance [to the Constitution].
“… Because if we are at that tipping point, if we are at that juncture, recovering if we go over the limit is almost impossible,” Winde said Thursday.
“You have to go through absolute anarchy and riots before you return. History has shown us. We cannot allow this province and this country to go down that path.”
Winde also blamed some of the NGOs, who took them to court to reverse the sale of the Tafelberg site, for the occupation of buildings around the city intended for social housing, such as Woodstock Hospital and the former nursing home in Helen Bowden.
He said that unless these people moved, no development would take place.
“It’s time to ask those people, whom you actually place, to please make the way, so that we can make inclusive housing,” Winde said.
In a separate statement, Ndifuna Ukwazi (UN) objected to a statement to a committee in early September, saying that Cape Town’s MMC for Community Security, JP Smith, had blamed activists for some illegal occupations in Khayelitsha. .
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UN said it was present at illegal shack demolitions, carried out without warrants in eThembeni and Makhaza during the shutdown, to protect the constitutional rights of the occupants.
“Rather than respond to the city’s role in addressing a deepening crisis of landlessness and lack of access to housing in our city, leaders like Cllr JP Smith have specifically targeted human rights defenders and they have prioritized the surveillance of housing activists. This is worrying, “UN said.
The tense debate in the legislature was started by ACDP MPL Martin Christians, who called the land occupations “well planned and well orchestrated.”
He said that between April and July, the city of Cape Town alone responded to about 220 occupations.
ANC MPL Danville Smith called for an urgent land audit, with a special focus on Stellenbosch Township leases.
He said it was a myth that the ANC supported “land grabs” and blamed the district attorney for saying this to avoid accountability and their cheap sales of land to private property developers.
“The poor have lost all hope that the state will ever build them houses and have now turned to land grabbing,” he said.
DA MPL Matlhodi Maseko said that around R1.3 billion in “housing opportunities” were lost due to illegal land occupations.
He said people who “think nothing” of skipping the housing queue were holding both the government and taxpayers to the rescue.
“They prey on the desperate through shack farming, who know it will only bring people into conflict with the law. They work with political opportunists, whose platform is based on personal gain rather than respect for the Constitution. “.
Human Settlements MEC Tertius Simmers said that illegally moving to housing land meant that the possibility of someone on the waiting list getting a home was gone forever.
He implored the Minister of Public Works, Patricia de Lille, to release plots of land that the province needs for its social housing.
Construction was about to start on the long-awaited Conradie site in Cape Town, but he said that in some cases, where the land had been handed over, power was not handed over, so development stalled.
Until now, some of the lands that the province had lost to specific projects included occupied lands in Khayelitsha, Macassar, Harare, Kuyasa and Maroela Park.
A finely negotiated land deal at Schulphoek in Hermanus was put on hold after a section was occupied, meaning the beneficiaries of neighboring Zwelihle will lose out.
“Wake up and smell the coffee,” Simmers said.
GOOD MPL Brett Heron said the DA government believed there was no place for the poor in central Cape Town.
Heron, a former member of the district attorney, said the province should already be working on opportunities for downtown on land at Sea Point, the City Bowl and even a government garage on Roeland Street.
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