On the early hours of May 31 2019, Alexandra residents in extension 7 did not have a place to call home as most of the house in the area were demolished by the Red Ants organisation.
It is alleged that the city of Johannesburg officials are the ones that ordered houses to be demolished. The community members were promised they by the office of the mayor that they would re-build their houses again. However, Gauteng News visited the township, the community is still dissatisfied about what they call empty promises made by the Mayor’s office, and they plead for the local government to fulfil their promises.
Gauteng News spoke to Monday Nyathi, a community member from extension 7 and he said nothing has happened since their houses were demolished; all they have is empty promises from the office of the mayor.
“The local government promised they would re build houses but today nothing is happening. The politicians came to us during elections and they promised us they would bring about service delivery and build houses for us but we were used for our votes”.
Before the Red Ants organisation entered the township, extension 7 had 163 houses that were built, and residents were promised a temporary accommodation. Gauteng News confirms that the local government has provided no accommodation and some of the community members organised a shelter where everyone has been affected can live in.
“They came with the mobile toilets which compromises our sanitation, so we resorted to using the bucket system. After our houses got demolished, our children were traumatised and the City of Johannesburg promised they would bring social workers to counsel our people but no one came back to us. We lost our belongings including IDs, and Home Affairs promised they would come and assist to make new IDs, unfortunately we haven’t seen the mobile Home Affairs,” said Nyathi.
Residents in the area still without proper electrification and most which are unemployed. Community members collect bricks and try to re built their houses for themselves hoping the City of Johannesburg will meet them half way with building houses. Gauteng News will keep on following the story has it unfolds.
image sources
- alexandra: Gauteng Newspaper
