Maile: Land identified to relocate Cemetery View residents after fire
Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements, Lebogang Maile says they have deployed a team to aid the residents of the Cemetery View Informal Settlement following a devastating blaze.
An estimated 814 shacks burned down and nearly 2,600 people were affected by the fire in the early hours of Saturday morning.
One person died and another was rushed to hospital after being critically wounded.
On Monday morning, Maile visited the area together with the Tshwane MMC for Human Settlements Ofentse Madzebatela to assess the extent of the damage.
The MEC says that land has already been identified for relocation of the residents.
“The municipality has just appointed engineers to deal with the designs and make sure that the land is ready and habitable for the relocations. We can't deal with the timelines now because they've just been appointed. What we want to urge the municipality to do is to move quicker and ask the engineers to work as fast as possible.
“Informal settlements are a big problem in our province. They border on lawlessness in most cases, and we need to find a way of preventing people from occupying land.
“We don't have to wait until people occupy land illegally, it is not helpful. It demonstrates weakness on the part of the state, it demonstrates disorganization, and we want the municipalities, the province and national, to work together in a coordinated way making sure that all the state-owned land, including private-owned land, is identified, protected” added Maile.
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