MALULEKA SAYS LEEWFONTEIN LAND OWNERS WILLING TO GIVE LAND TO MUNICIPALITY

City of Tshwane MMC for human settlement
addressing residents of Golden City photos supplied

MMC for Human Settlements in the City of Tshwane Aaron Malukeka has announced that land owners of Leewfontein near Mamelodi are willing to give up ownership of their land to the City of Tshwane Municipality so that the Municipality can embark on efforts to develop the area.

Malukeka says Leewfontein is one of the 17 townships that were established illegally in Tshwane.

“We have gone out to meet the said communities and some of these communities might have built their houses on floodlines and wetlands from which they might have to be relocated,” said Malukeka

“Our engagements were in two phases whereby we met with land owners and residents, and we are happy that both parties are willing to comply with our by-laws and partner with the City of Tshwane Municipality to make sure that we as the Municipality we are able to provide services to them,” he said.

“We indicated to residents that this is a partnership between them and us as we don’t have the resources in abundance to resolve the issue of illegal townships,” he said.

Malukeka emphasised that the Municipality loses lots of money on the illegal use of services like water, sewer and electricity as they can’t be accounted for.

“We have also engaged land owners of illegal townships like Leewfontein whereby land owners have agreed to give up the land to the City for the purpose of development because at the beginning of the establishment of the illegal township they collected money from those who bought land in Leewfontein,” he said.

“We need lots of money to develop illegal townships like Leewfontein and we have lost out on revenue regarding rates and taxes, but we will make sure that going forward the Municipality manages to get the said monies so that we can roll out social infrastructure and also support these communities in many other ways,” he said.

He said the City of Tshwane Municipality has finalised agreements with fifteen illegally-established townships and were only left with two areas, namely Kleinfontein and Dilopye.

He said in Kleinfontein there were disagreements regarding the engagement process with the Municipality but that as the Municipality they are still willing to give the residents of that area a hearing before the next Council meeting and in the tribal land of Dilopye in Hammanskraal there were disagreements regarding the modalities of holding the engagement process.

Maluleka said if Dilopye and Kleinfontein communities don’t engage the Municipality, then that would be unfortunate because his department has to take a draft report to the Mayoral committee concerning the provision of services like water, sewer, electricity, development of amenities and future developments so as to preserve spaces for the building of schools, clinics and police stations in the future in those areas.

“Overall we are happy that the engagements with stakeholders at these illegal townships were fruitful and the lesson that we have learned is that we need to increase law-enforcement efforts so as to stop people from establishing illegal townships or settlements from the outset,” he said.

“We will assist people who have invested lots and lots of their monies in their properties which are at these illegal townships,” he said.