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The DA calls on the SAPS to act on emerging evidence that the Ses’Khona People’s Rights Movement could have made as much as R330 000 from illegal plot-selling prior to the Lwandle evictions.

Affidavits submitted by the DA to the SAPS detail how Ses’Khona ran the operation in Lwandle, illegally selling plots of private SANRAL land to residents.

Ses’Khona sold these plots to residents for between R500 (according to affidavits by Lwandle residents submitted to the police), and R4000, according to resident Nomvuyo Mhlonyane, quoted in the Cape Argus on 6 June, shortly after the evictions.

We now know from the City of Cape Town’s submission to the Lwandle Inquiry that a total of 660 sites were pegged out on SANRAL land for shacks to be built. This is according to information given to City officials on 4 January 2014 and then conveyed to SANRAL as the land owner.

This means that if each plot was sold for the minimum of R500 as the affidavits indicate, Ses’Khona stood to have made at least R330 000 from illegal plot sales before SANRAL’s winter evictions invariably took place.

ANC Councillor Mbuyiselo Matha also testified in the Lwandle Inquiry yesterday that occupation of SANRAL land was a controlled, organized process:

“If I stay in Cape Town and want to move to Lwandle, I must introduce myself to the leaders there. I must go either to the councillor as head of the community &hellip or the leaders in that particular area. I won’t just get there and erect a structure without informing the leader of that area. That’s what happened. These people would go to the leaders there, and if it is acceptable, it is agreed that that person should be given accommodation there. And they would have a book where everybody’s name would appear.”

To facilitate this illegal plot-selling, Ses’Khona encouraged residents to join their organization by paying a membership fee of R25 and completing an official form with Ses’Khona’s banking details.

We must not allow these political vampires who have profited from the suffering of Lwandle residents to get away with this crime.

The DA has already laid criminal charges against Ses’Khona (case number CAS 1062/7/2014). Given the evidence that continues to emerge in the public domain, we reiterate our call for the SAPS to act on the complaints of the Lwandle community without delay.