House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House - 1) notes that the backroom dweller communities in Wards 65, 68, 96 and 71 in Daveyton have been engaged in land occupation struggles since 17 January 2015;
(2) also notes that the ward councillors promised them settlement land during the local government election campaigns and beyond, and since then have not delivered on this basic human right, despite rising demands for land and homes for the homeless people;
(3) further notes that the land they had been promised was identified in Ward 96, where government moved hundreds of families in 2001, arguing that the piece of land was inhabitable, and yet it recently built a shopping complex on the same land;
(4) notes, moreover, that in 1991 and 2001 it moved people from this land and dumped them in Ward 71, Lindelani, where they still remain, without electricity, housing, water and sanitation, and all of these are basic human necessities;
(5) also notes that on 24 February 2015 the shack dwellers of Ward 97 were forcibly removed, on the instructions of the ward councillor, by the police and the Red Ants, using brute force, and resulting in injuries and arrests;
(6) further notes that this signifies that the government of the day is an uncaring government which responds to homeless and landless people with brutality and violence;
(7) notes, moreover, that this government has criminalised the homeless and the landless instead of giving them water, blankets or shelter, that it prefers to use violence on defenceless people, and that the only accommodation this government is prepared to provide freely for the poor masses is prisons; and
(8) finally notes that the EFF is here to tell of the horror, the sad story of the people, especially of the black masses, which the ANC seeks to hide and does not want to be heard.