Mettler stands firm after scathing letter over land invasions

Nelson Mandela Bay municipal manager Johann Mettler is adamant the city is not contravening a council resolution by preventing residents from invading land.

The city boss said the council decided earlier this year to seek approval prior to evicting people, but the municipality was acting against those erecting illegal structures.

It comes after ANC councillor Rory Riordan wrote a scathing letter to Mettler, accusing the city of defying a council resolution by evicting land invaders without the council’s blessing.

In response, Mettler said the council resolution referred to evictions and not the prevention of illegal land occupation.

“When occupants acquire rights in land after an extended, although illegal, stay the council resolution comes into effect,” Mettler wrote.

Speaking to The Herald, Mettler said there was nothing exigent or urgent about Riordan’s motion. For this reason, he had called it incompetent at the time.

Mettler said that should illegal land grabs continue, the funding budgeted for housing would not be spent and would have to be returned to the national Treasury.

“Then everybody would have lost. In addition, it is a national directive from the president [Cyril Ramaphosa] to resist illegal land invasions,” Mettler said.
In his letter, Riordan wrote that the January council decision made it clear that a majority council decision had to be sought before the metro acted against land invaders.

Meanwhile, ANC ward 41 branch secretary Thobekile Lawu said the party distanced itself from the Joe Slovo invasion.

Lawu accused a certain faction of the ANC of playing on residents’ emotions and manipulating them to build on land that was already demarcated either for housing or business.

“There are people who collect land invaders and put them in sites demarcated for housing and business,” he said. “This is a disgruntled group who lost in the 2016 elections who claim they are ANC members.

“We also distance ourselves and we disassociate ourselves from the father who threw his baby off the roof last week.”

Lawu said the ANC in Joe Slovo understood the plight of the people wanting houses but that there were proper channels.

“There is a clear programme in place for relocating people to their sites,” he said.

“What we are seeing are people who want to destabilise the progress we’ve made here.”