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Joburg city manager Ndivhoniswani Lukhwareni has taken responsibility for the demolition of more than 80 houses in Alexandra. He claims to have been wrongfully informed that no one lived in the structures.
The City of Johannesburg accepted the responsibility for the demolition of the illegally built structures last week in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, during an inquiry by the South African Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector in Braamfontein on Wednesday.
Lukhwareni shouldered the blame saying he, as the accounting officer, was prepared to face the music for the demolishing of the 80 houses. However, he reiterated that taking blame did not mean that he was the one who had given the directive to the Red Ants to carry out the demolitions.
#AlexInquiry City Manager Dr Ndivhoniswani Lukhwareni expresses dissapointment that he was taken out of context this Morning at the Human Rights Commission. ^PS#AlexDemolitions@HermanMashaba pic.twitter.com/y9mUVPQJAY
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) June 5, 2019
“I am an accounting officer in the city, so I do take responsibility for what happened. From my understanding, the structures targeted were unoccupied, incomplete and those which were complete were unoccupied. That being that, on the same day we released the disaster management [to help the homeless people],” he said.
This response came after the city manager was asked about the evictions by the Red Ants carried out last Friday, leaving dozens of people destitute.
The demolition was apparently as a result of illegal occupants building structures too close to the Jukskei River, an area prone to flooding.
Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, who was accompanied to the area by Lukhwareni and other senior officials on Monday, had warned that he was conducting an investigation into who had given the go-ahead while he was out of the country attending his daughter’s graduation.
He reiterated that the officials involved in executing the eviction order obtained in 2016 would face grave consequences.
Mashaba has since promised the community that the city would rebuild the destroyed structures within a month.
This promise was met with polarised reactions. Those who lost their homes in the demolition were jovial but residents living in other parts of Alexandra expressed that those whose homes had been demolished were not originally from the township. They claimed that the individuals had moved in after being evicted from the inner city.
The Red Ants who carried out the demolition identified the City of Johannesburg as the organisation on whose behalf they were acting when they demolished the homes, and this led to the city manager’s confession.
There had been speculation, especially from the Economic Freedom Fighters, that the authorisation has been given by “a senior official from the Joburg Metro Police Department” under the behest of politically invested individuals who wished to see the coalition government of the DA and the EFF unsettled.
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