Cape Town - Infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers claims some opposition political parties allegedly fronted as business forums “seeking to extort and gain possible funding.”
Simmers made these comments during a debate in the Western Cape Legislature over a lack of access to land for the poor and marginalised.
The debate also touched on challenges of land invasion and housing delays.
DA MPL Derrick America enquired if Simmers’ department identified specific groups or organisations who were encouraging land grabs.
“We have sadly learnt that since 2019 certain political parties were playing a very coordinated role in encouraging land grabs.
“We have seen this at the Forest Village Housing Development project that is about 99% completed, where a specific political party encouraged people to occupy and there were intimidation and threats made. We were forced to approach the Western Cape High Court for an urgent interdict to prevent that from happening. We have also seen where we try to get access to informal settlements to conduct studies.”
He alleged that political parties played a central role in asking their members in those areas to prevent department officials from doing assessment.
“There is a true conversion of certain political parties fronting through these so called business forums, seeking to extort and gain funding through these acts of extortion on various sites across the Western Cape,” said Simmers.
The ANC had enquired about certain housing projects that have been delayed for more than a year due to alleged extortion and violence.
Earlier this year the department stated that more than 21 000 housing beneficiaries have been affected.
Simmers said they were aware of tactics associated with what has been characterised as ‘construction mafia’ related activities including violence and intimidation.
“As the department we work closely with the communities including steering committees and councillors, police and City law enforcement.
We are requesting the law authorities to conduct daily patrol routines to our various sites. We have also improved security on sites to ensure a safe and conducive working environment,” said Simmers.
ANC leader of the opposition Cameron Dugmore argued that the key obstacle to land redistribution in the province was the DA.
“Access to land for farming is but one issue. It’s about access to land for human settlements, industry, small business, social development. Our province faces serious challenges of poverty, massive housing backlogs across most municipalities, the ongoing legacy of apartheid spatial planning,” he said.
According to Dugmore it was only in the Western Cape and Northern Cape where, in regard to urban land ownership, the white population own the majority of urban land.
He said this was a recipe for conflict, violence and populist calls for land invasions.
“We propose regional and local social compacts which will identify public and private land and then release such land to those who suffered unfair discrimination under apartheid.
We have thus decided to embark on a campaign of land identification and release across the 30 municipalities.”
Cape Times