The subway located next to College Road in Rondebosch, like the others in the area, now stands empty and sealed shut.
A week ago, about 10 street people had called it home.
Responding to a call from a Rondebosch resident, Richard Benson, People’s Post visited the subway on Friday 14 January – the same day the memorial service was held for Dumisani Joxo (44) – the man who was shot and killed by a law enforcement officer at Liesbeek Trail on Sunday 9 January.
Concerned for the street people’s welfare, Benson alerted the People’s Post to an operation which was held at the subway by law enforcement officers a day before.
Benson described how a team of law enforcement officers hauled out all of the inhabitants’ possessions and left it piled up on a grass patch nearby on Thursday 13 January.
“Those are people’s life-time possessions. How are they going to live now? These people now have nowhere to go. I would like to know what is happening, if the City has offered them a place to stay?” said Benson.
When People’s Post stopped at the subway, three of the people who had been living in the subway were lying on a mattress under the shade of a tree close by.
According to one of them, Marius van der Ross, they weren’t given any notice of the operation nor offered alternative accommodation.
“They just came and said we must get out. Most of us are just wondering around on the streets but they are coming back tonight to sleep here (on the grass),” said Van der Ross.
Taswell Lombardt, who lived in the subway with his mother, aunt and uncle, claims they were told to go to Observatory.
“Maar dit is ’n deurmekaar plek. Daar is te veel gangsterism daar. (But it is a messed-up place. There is too much gangsterism there.)”
Law enforcement spokesperson Wayne Dyason confirms an operation was held at the subway on Thursday 13 January.
Dayson says the operation was done in response to residents’ complaints. “There were safety issues. The subway was welded shut a while ago due to safety issues, for example fires in the subway and theft of electricity infrastructure,” he adds.
According to Dyason, the persons on this particular site previously were issued with compliance notices.
“As is standard procedure with all street people, assistance was offered to the persons on site on numerous occasions, but it was refused,” he says.
Under the National State of Disaster (which was recently extended) and while the National Disaster Management Act is in place, law enforcement cannot confiscate any personal items. Tents, bedding as well as clothes are deemed personal items and cannot be confiscated.
Dyason says law enforcement is complying with applicable legislation and officers are aware of what they can and cannot do.
“Part of our interventions is always to first offer shelter or reintegration assistance. No personal items were confiscated. The persons found on site were asked to vacate and did so of their own accord. No tents were taken down by officers,” he says.
In a media statement sent out in October last year, the City said, following the declaration of the State of National Disaster, the City had observed an increase in unlawful occupation as well as an increase in a variety of makeshift structures and tented camps being erected throughout the metropole.
“In 2017, there were 14 289 land invasions in the City. In 2018, that number had increased to 87 500 land invasions and by 2018, 2 328 559 ha of City owned land had been lost to unlawful occupiers. By 2020, this figure increased to 2 414 671 ha,” the statement read.
It went on to say that it was not only the City that had been impacted by unlawful occupations.
“By June 2020, 338 743 ha of State and privately owned land in the City had been unlawfully occupied, of which 73% is City-owned land. An additional 25,5 ha of City land has been lost in 2021.”
On Friday 14 January the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, in terms of the Disaster Management Act, 2 gazetted the extension of the National State of Disaster on Covid-19 until Tuesday 15 February.
Premier Alan Winde expressed his disappointment at the extension. “The fact that it has been done without tabling a clear ‘roadmap’ for when it will end is even more worrying,” said Winde.
He said the Western Cape had furnished clear evidence that Covid-19 had reached an “endemic” stage.
“This data supports normalising our response, with common-sense public health measures incorporated into existing public health legislation . . . Disaster Declaration, which is an extreme measure, is no longer needed for its intended purpose of protecting our healthcare system, and it must come to an end,” said Winde.
