EFF statement on the evictions or threats of evictions by financial institutions, banks, commercial and retail stores’ property owners and landlords
23 June 2020
Despite prohibitions on evictions announced by Minister of COGTA for both level four and three adjusted Regulations in the government gazette, the EFF has received countless complaints relating to evictions and repossession of houses across the breadth and width of the country. Cases of evictions from residential and commercial properties cut across all social classes but the majority of victims are working people in general and poor working-class households in particular.
This applies for residential tenants who continued to live in the mortgaged/rented/leased house and have lost their jobs; been prevented from taking occupation of the property as a result of lockdown and now can't pay the rent and commercial tenants who cannot trade from the leased premises. We condemn the inhumane treatment of those who have been prevented from taking occupancy, cannot trade from leased premises or have been evicted and whose belongings are vandalised, broken or even stolen by enforcement agencies such as the sheriffs, members of the SAPS and red ants.
We also note that these sweeping evictions, are carried out indiscriminately targeting the most vulnerable groups in society such as orphans, people with disabilities and the elderly, and are executed with brazen insensibility. With many losing sources of income and livelihood, they are dealt a double- blow of the loss of income due to the coronavirus, on one hand, eviction and repossession of their houses in the hands of unscrupulous government officials and financial institutions and banks on the other.
These evictions leave those who have been evicted traumatised, particularly children as families are thrown out without being provided with alternative shelters or accommodation.