CAROL PATON: Eviction debacle shows Cape Town’s lack of empathy towards the poor
Mayor Dan Plato has defended the heavy-handed treatment of Bulelani Qholani in Khayelitsha
Cape Town, we have a problem. Yes, all of SA’s cities have large numbers of people living in informal settlements, and of them Cape Town is not the worst. About 19% of Cape Town’s 1.8-million households live in shacks, not quite as bad as Johannesburg, where the proportion is 21.7%.
All cities are also subject to continuous and ongoing land invasions to the extent that each one has “an anti-land invasion unit” to act swiftly against unlawful occupiers and remove their structures. Johannesburg has what is in effect a private army — the notorious Red Ants — whose modus operandi is more akin to a battalion going into battle than a modern law enforcement body...
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