Land invasions hamper Lenasia service delivery, while Protea South residents still wait for housing, basic services
9 September 2021
It is extremely disheartening that the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) along with the South African Police Service (SAPS) are both using the Covid-19 emergency regulations as an excuse for not taking any action to curb land invasions taking place in Lenasia and surrounding areas.
While these land invasions are taking place unabated, law-abiding citizens who pay their rates and taxes have their residential amenity, security and property values negatively impacted. The theft of services by invaders puts pressure on the existing infrastructure resulting in many, long electrical outages. When Lenasia residents try to stop any vandalism of the infrastructure themselves, their lives are threatened.
These invasions have been taking place on Prasa, Johannesburg Municipality and Sanral owned land, yet to date, no joint intergovernmental task team has been set up to deal with the land invasions in the province, despite a commitment from the MEC for Human Settlements, Lebogang Maile to do so in 2019.
The illegal invasion of land is a criminal act and must therefore be confronted by SAPS, since they have the authority to perform intelligence gathering and investigate criminal activity.