MAILA GOFENYWA ORGANISATION (MGO)/ ANTI PRIVATISATION FORUM (APF)

9 July 2008

The residents of Atteridgeville Lotus Garden march against the privatisation of land in Pretoria

Residents of Atteridgeville will be marching today at 09h00 to the Tshwane Department of Housing to deliver a memorandum of grievances to the Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu, and MEC of Housing, Nomvula Mokonyane. We will gather at Jubilee Park, Sunnyside and then proceed to the Housing Department’s Govan Mbeki House in Walker Street.

Many of the residents have been on the housing waiting list since 1996 and land was earmarked for housing development in Lotus Garden Extension 2, portion 226 JR646 of Pretoria Town and Town lands 351. But corrupt housing officials want to sell the land to private developers who want to build expensive houses to line their own pockets. The 213 square hectares of land is big enough to accommodate about 5000 RDP units and this will go some way to easing the housing backlog in Pretoria.

The residents are angry because they have waited for housing delivery for more than a decade while land is available for the building of houses for the poor. The situation in Pretoria is similar to many other townships where land has been bought by private investors to develop bond houses that the poor can’t afford, and government is allowing this process to continue. Many local municipalities are creating the predicament of not having land to develop affordable housing for the poor because available land is sold to private developers. As residents of Attridgeville, we demand that the government give us this land to occupy immediately with serviced stands allocated for the people.

For more information please contract John Ngwetjana @ 073 353 5748 or Lucy Kganakga @ 073 125 1172 or Silumko Radebe @ 072 1737 268 or 011333 8334