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21 February 2008

Building contractors yesterday had begun returning to site following the eviction by the Sheriff of the Court on Tuesday of people who unlawfully invaded homes under construction in Delft Symphony. Urgent steps are being taken to fence the site. No home invaders remained on site yesterday.

A few hundred people have spent the past two nights camped outside across the road from the homes from which were evicted. Police and representatives of private security companies hired by the contractors maintained a close watching brief. Mr Itumeleng Kotsoane, national Director-General of Housing, said the City of Cape Town should take responsibility for evicted people with nowhere to go following the arrest of one of its councillors for inciting the invasion.

It was also the City's responsibility to protect State-owned land from invasion.
Thubelisha, the N2 Gateway Pilot Project developers, would later today be meeting senior representatives of Ibuyile, the construction consortium engaged to build homes in Delft Symphony, to plot the way forward. A quantity surveyor had already been appointed to assess damage caused by the home invaders. This was necessary to determine the quantum of a civil claim that would be lodged against DA Councillor Frank Martin to recover costs.

"We want the contractor to move quickly to ready the homes for handover. Thubelisha's target is to have 50 homes ready per week."

Seventy percent of the homes would be allocated to former residents of informal settlements now living in Temporary Relocation Areas, and 30 percent to residents of backyard shacks and Wendy Houses in the broad Delft area. This ratio was agreed by the three levels of government following input from community and other stakeholders at the outset of the N2 Gateway Pilot Project.

"We have requested the Allocations Committee, run by the City and Province, to allocate beneficiaries to every available home, so the information can be published within seven days. Many of the homes had already been allocated prior to their being invaded."

On Monday, refusing the invaders leave to appeal against their eviction, Mr Justice Deon Van Zyl of the Cape High Court said that much as the court sympathised with poor people who had followed bad advice from someone who should have known better, it could not sanction home invasions because anarchy would result. There was no question that government or the building contractors should provide alternative accommodation because the houses had been unlawfully occupied, Judge van Zyl said.

For more information please call:
Mr Ndivhuwo wa ha Mabaya
Tel: 012 421 1515
Cell: 083 645 7838

Issued by: Department of Housing
21 February 2008
Source: SAPA