The ANC is using “land-grabs” in Tshwane to disrupt the new DA municipal government, a Times investigation has uncovered.
According to a report by the paper, at least nine ANC members, including treasurer of the ANC Women’s League’s Nellmapius branch, have been implicated in an apparent ‘land-grab’ scheme.
The scheme operates by land being offered to people for low amounts (R100), and then those people being encouraged to set up informal homes. The new land owners are told to return to the land whenever they are evicted.
The Times investigated the scheme by having a journalist pose as a prospective land owner. According to the report, ANC Women’s League member, Salome Tau, offered the journalist land for R100 and said: “The plan is to join the other shacks that have been there for years … By the time they realise there are new shacks, the municipality will have a challenge evicting people. Take your shack and R100. We have people there who will show you where to erect your shack.”
Tau later denied any knowledge of the apparent land invasions and said her words were misconstrued, the paper said.
The paper also cited independent sources who pointed to at least 9 other ANC members doing the same thing, and confirmed with residents at one settlement that at least 290 people had paid R100 to be allocated plots.
You can read the full Times investigation here: ‘ANC land-grab plot’ to crash DA in Tshwane.
In 2014, the Economic Freedom Fighters used similar tactics to disrupt ANC governance in the province, when it encouraged its members to set up shacks on a vacant piece of land in Nellmapius.
The action, which the EFF’s senior officials openly endorsed, proved to be a major headache for the ANC-led municipality, which was forced to regularly dismantle the informal homes.
The EFF’s motivations for the land grab was government’s slow move to redistribute land to black people in South Africa.
The municipality eventually got a court interdict preventing any shacks from being erected on the land.
