8 March 2024
After seven days of intense pressure on the Mangaung Metro to remove illegal land occupiers along Jagersfontein Road, south of Bloemfontein, the bulldozers began demolishing the zinc houses on Friday morning.
This followed a court order, obtained on the first day of the occupation, to halt it. Mayor Gregory Nthatisi and city manager Sello More did not enforce the court order and faced sharp criticism from residents and political parties.
Residents of Lourier Park and Pellissier, the residential areas affected by the land occupation, woke up on Friday to the sounds of hammer blows and zinc plates falling on top of each other, while a police helicopter circled overhead.
Neighbourhood watch groups and security companies shared photos and videos showing how bulldozers, police, emergency services and security vehicles converged on the scene. Residents of nearby suburbs were asked to avoid the area while the evictions were taking place.
By the time the action began, according to estimates from political parties, there were about 3 000 illegal occupiers in the area. Even on Thursday 7 March, a day before the evictions, the South African National Civics Organisation was still recording the names of thousands of people who flocked to the area in the hope of obtaining a plot.
According to the DA, the land occupations could have been prevented if the ANC-controlled metro and the Free State Department of Human Settlements had fulfilled their duty to provide housing. The department budgeted to build only 480 houses in the Free State in 2023/24.
“The department will lose R670 million of its budget over the next three years because it could not spend it on housing construction,” said David van Vuuren, the DA finance spokesperson in the Free State. He pointed out that over the past four years, the department had to return R1 billion.
The occupied land belongs to the municipality and was earmarked for the construction of low-cost housing in 2016, said Dave McKay, DA councillor for the ward where the occupations took place. “But there was never any money to build them.”
The Freedom Front Plus said in a statement that sustained pressure from the party and other stakeholders had forced the Mangaung Metro to take action.
“The occupiers should have been stopped in their tracks on Saturday already, but the delay in implementing the court order only exacerbated the situation,” said FF Plus MP Heloïse Denner, whose constituency office is in Mangaung.
Although the FF Plus legal team prepared its own urgent application to the court, the party decided to support an earlier application to save time and bring relief to the residents of Lourier Park and surrounding areas.
“The illegal occupation of municipal land allegedly encouraged by ANC councillors is an extremely dangerous election ploy by the ANC. It is a desperate attempt by the ruling party to give people what they have been promising for 30 years but failing to deliver,” said Denner.
On social media, many Bloemfontein residents lamented the situation that led to bulldozers being used to remove the illegal land occupiers.
In an open letter to the mayor, Mojaki Keaoabetsoe Mojaki wrote that the way the ANC condoned the illegal occupation contradicted the principles of the Freedom Charter.
“If we in the ANC selfishly abuse our proximity to power to score cheap political points, it will destroy the party. Your municipality, esteemed mayor, should have long been proactive in addressing the housing crisis in the city.”
