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In this photograph, the police are seen trying to talk with worried men whose illegal shacks were burnt down.

Police destroy illegal shacks at dumping site

 

A group of distraught and sad men lifted up their hands and wrapped their arms round their heads as the makeshift shacks that they had called home for months went up in smoke.

This happened on Friday when the Makhado police team went to burn down the shacks encroaching on the busy area opposite the main gate of the Makhado municipal dumping site outside Louis Trichardt. All those men, who came from different parts of Vhembe, had camped near the dumping site, and they scavenged for scrap metal in the dumping site.

“I come from Tshakhuma and was staying in my shack here,” said a man, who declined to be named. “They burned my shack. The law destroyed my shack. It is good and convenient for me to collect metal from the ‘dirty box’ (dumping site) when I am camping close by. I then sell it for a living. I have three kids who are all at school. I can’t afford to buy a bus ticket; I am not making much either.”

However, the police’s spokesperson, Const Irene Radzilani, said that it had been reported that many robbery, assault and mugging cases were taking place in the vicinity of the dumping site and that the victims and complainants suspected the shack dwellers of the crimes.

“We decided to scrap all the illegal shacks as part of crime prevention and fighting crime,” Radzilani said. “The edible stuff collected from the dumping site may also pose health hazards to these men.”

The spokesperson for the Makhado Municipality, Mr Louis Bobodi, said that no person was allowed to occupy a piece of land without the municipality’s permission. 

“Anyone who occupies a piece of land in this town without our knowledge and consent must know that they are committing a criminal offence,” Bobodi said. “The moment we learnt about a group of people whose illegal shacks were mushrooming in the place near the dumping site, we asked the police to send them off for good.”

Bobodi then stressed the point that the activities of a group of men who scavenge for scrap metal in the dumping site were illegal. “We are not going to allow the situation where people continue to disrespect municipal laws even after they have been made aware of their criminal activities,” he stated. “We will deal with whoever transgresses against the security measures which protect the dumping site.”

 

Date:23 January 2015

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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