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Thousands of people have been left homeless in Mamelodi, east of Pretoria, after devastating rains swept away their shacks and left one person dead.
The tragedy highlights a housing crisis in Gauteng, which has seen thousands setting up homes on dangerous flood lines and dry river beds.
Thousands of people have been temporarily housed in various community halls across Mamelodi as hundreds of shacks were either swept away or flooded for hours after a heavy downpour on Friday and Saturday.
The affected areas are in Eerstefabriek, Willow Farm and Mavuso informal settlements, which are on a flood line that was also affected by floods in 2019 and swept away more than 700 shacks.
When Sowetan visited Eerstefabriek informal settlement on Saturday and yesterday, furniture items including fridges, television sets and groceries were floating in the water while several shacks were knee-high in water near Moretele River.
Desperate shack owners were trying to salvage their valuables, which were soaking wet, with many saying they had to evacuate their homes as the river bank had burst and water got into their shacks on Friday evening.
Gauteng human settlements MEC Lebogang Maile admitted yesterday that they faced a housing crisis, which made those without housing options desperate. “This is caused by a combination of factors including a housing crisis. Gauteng has about one million people who need houses that's an objective reality.”
Maile said though there was no need to blame anyone, the Eersterfabriek problem could have been solved by the purchase of suitable and habitable land that administrators who were running the city when it was placed under administration in 2020.
“The administrators had identified land and started the process of acquiring that land but we have reliably informed that Tshwane mayor Randall Williams has stopped that process when the purchase had started and the money made available,” Maile said.
He said in light of what is happening in Mamelodi, he will write to Williams and seek an explanation. “Those people [in Eersefabriek] could have been long relocated.”
Williams’ spokesperson, Jordan Griffiths, said the sale was stopped as the administrators had been trying to use R296m from the city’s utility services development grant to acquire the land.
“When the mayor came into office at the end of November 2020, this transaction was tabled and we made an executive decision not to proceed primarily because we found it was likely to be found to be irregular,” Griffiths said.
He said the city always sought suitable land for relocations but was often faced with challenges including fierce resistance from those who have to be relocated.
“We also find ourselves often having to relocate people who have invaded land illegally, and often this is done deliberately to force a relocation, which disrupts the city’s normal planning processes,” he said.
Many of the most recent flood victims have been in the same situation before in 2019. Solly Mogano, a resident of Eerstefabriek informal settlement is one of them.
“I’m so scared right now and at the same time happy I have made it alive me and my family into that flood and all my grocery I bought swept away,” Mogano said.
He said around midnight on Saturday water started rising in the shacks, which are situated along a then dry river bed. They blew a whistle to alert their community to get out of their shacks immediately.
He said the City of Tshwane been promising to move them 2019 but only a small number was relocated last year.
Community leader Vusi Sibiya said it was high time that the municipality took their plight seriously and find a permanent solution.
“We want the municipality to commit to us that we will stay at halls for a week and after that they will take us straight to a permanent place, we know we will stay for months at halls,” said Sibiya.
Tshwane MMC of community safety Grandi Theunisen said what was unfolding was an emergency that needed urgent intervention.
“Our main focus now is one thing to alleviate the emergency. We will address long-term solutions at a later stage,” said Theunisen.
MMC of human settlement Abel Tau said they need to find a lasting solution that includes relocating people living in unsafe areas.
On Saturday, residents of Extension 22 Nellmapius found the body of man in the mud after the rains subsided. The deceased allegedly tried to reach his flooded shack to save his belongings.
Gauteng police spokesperson Capt Mavela Masondo said police have open an inquest docket for investigation. The cause of death will only be known after the post-mortem has been completed.
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