The municipality has decided to effect this court order obtained in 2019 at the Free State High Court. This court order warns residents who allegedly occupied a site in Makeleketla near Winburg to vacate its occupied piece of land within a specified period.

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In the court order, the affected residents have been given a mere 15 days to do so. In 2017, the constitutional court order determined that judges have an obligation to ensure evictions will not leave people homeless.

ALSO READ: Judges can no longer lawfully order evictions that leave people homeless

The municipality has not been available to respond to several OFM News enquiries and is yet to respond.

However, the leader of the community in Makeleketla, Mpholo Moshe, has vowed that the residents of Makeleketla will stand together and defend those affected by these eviction orders. Moshe tells OFM News that for the past 20 years the said municipality has failed to allocate sites for residents and as a result, people have struggled to get proper housing from the government.

The Auditor-General (AG), Tsakani Maluleke, also raised concerns in her latest report this year about the capacity of municipalities across the country to adequately deal with the housing issues.

“While most of the province’s infrastructure funding was spent, poor project management resulted in quality defects on housing, water, sanitation, and other projects. Municipalities should diligently monitor key infrastructure projects to ensure that resources are used economically and effectively to help the economy grow. The current state of disaster, due to the recent floods in the province, is likely to exacerbate the challenges municipalities face in completing planned infrastructure projects,” Maluleke said in her report.

OFM News