Photo credit: GroundUp
The office of Premier Panyaza Lesuti of Gauteng, South Africa, has failed to back up his claim that most residents of informal settlements in the province are undocumented immigrants.
Ground Up reports that he had announced a crackdown on informal settlements, claiming that most of their residents are undocumented migrants. However, his office is yet to explain how he reached that conclusion.
He had said in a press conference earlier this month. that the “majority of these new informal settlements are people that are not documented in our country”. He also declared that the government has “no responsibility” for providing houses to undocumented residents. He further said many people occupying land illegally are attempting to bypass formal housing processes.
He said he had instructed his officials to start tearing down informal settlements in the early hours of the morning. “I said to the team, we are going to dismantle this informal settlement at 2 am.
“The patience of this government, and the patience of our people in our country, and the accommodating nature of us to ensure that we work within the human rights limitations, has been abused and taken advantage of.”
His words sparked outrage from the civil society group Abahlali baseMjondolo, which accused him of launching “a war on the poor”.
Groundup asked Lesufi’s office how the Premier had come to his conclusion about undocumented immigrants in informal settlements.
His spokesman, Sizwe Pamia, said, “The information is sourced using various means. One of those is through a broad community safety strategy. The provincial government gathers information by supporting local structures where community patrollers work alongside councillors and law enforcement.”
Other sources of information included public forums and engagement with municipalities, he said.
In the 2022 census, approximately 584,316 people were living in informal dwellings in Guateng at that time. It accounted for 11% of the province’s housing. GroundUp found no official census data on what proportion of these belonged to undocumented immigrants
