Residents continue housing & service delivery protests

Protests over water shortages continued at a village in the North West last night

Protests over water shortages continued at a village in the North West last night. Ten people were arrested in Ntswele-tsoku outside Zeerust. The arrests followed attempts by the police to disperse hundreds of villagers.

Police used teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters earlier yesterday, but they later re-grouped, and started burning 26 plastic water tanks, which are used to temporarily provide the community with water.

The water tanks had not been refilled for almost a week, prompting the protest. The protest stopped traffic on the national road leading to the Botswana border. Those arrested face charges of public violence and malicious damage to public property. They will appear in court soon and more arrests are expected.

Alexandra protests
Service delivery protests also took place in Alexandra, near Johannesburg, yesterday. The protesters occupied RDP houses to protest against housing allocation delays.

The protesters said they had been waiting for houses for a long time and now wanted to try and live in the RDP structures currently under construction, rather than in the shacks they occupied. - SABC

Protests erupted on Wednesday for a second day in a row in Johannesburg's Alexandra settlement as residents danced and burnt tyres in anger at housing allocations, Gauteng police said.

Police spokesperson Seargeant Sanku Tsunke said a group of mainly female residents returned to singing, dancing and burning tyres in front of incomplete RDP houses on Wednesday...

Gauteng housing spokesperson Aviva Manqa said the protestors could get government housing only if they were on the official waiting list. - Sapa