BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI

THE mushrooming of shacks in Rustenburg is quite prevalent affects the good run of service delivery. The municipality said they are concern after the most of the land compounded by illegal occupation. The municipality spokesperson, Thapelo Matebesi said the registered shacks in the area were known as Plot 14 in Ward 19.

“We registered 448 shacks, but to our surprise, it is more than 500. In the area called Nkaneng, we have 4 824 registered shacks. We experience lot of illegal occupation of land (land grabs), mostly in the areas of Marikana and Lethabong.

“Our long term plan as the municipality is that we are busy profiling these informal settlements, with the view to applying to the National Support Program so that we can proclaim them as townships upon purchasing the land. This will then enable us to service the land and thus provide necessary services to the communities residing there,” he said.

Matebesi said the challenge facing them was that these processes take time and in the meantime people need essential services like water, sanitation, roads and electricity. He said they cannot provide these services if the area has not been proclaimed officially as a township after purchasing land for them. “Another challenge is that communities neighbouring these informal settlements complained that shacks devalue their fixed properties like bonded houses.

-TDN

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