Government does not wait for people to protest before addressing their needs, provincial Human Settlements MEC Paul Mashatile said on Wednesday.

"We don't want people to protest first. Where people are protesting and it's justified, we will listen," he told reporters following violent protests in Hammanskraal.

Violence broke out in the area on Monday when employees of the Red Ants security company, SAPS and Tshwane Metro Police arrived to flatten their shacks and evict them.

Two Red Ants employees were killed and six injured in an altercation with the residents. Five people were arrested, one of them for murder.

The evictions in the Kanana, Suurman and Sekampaneng informal settlements were suspended on Wednesday.

Mashatile promised locals the areas would be developed. He maintained that government was completing projects around the province to meet people’s needs.

A committee would be set up to investigate the Hammanskraal matter. It would include mayoral committee members, makgoshi (chiefs), residents, and his department, Mashatile said.

The committee would look at who was in the area and had been removed and then let them return. It would meet at the local municipal office on Friday morning.

“We will then allocate people, and in some instances we will build houses, put in water and services and then they will receive title deeds," he said.

"There are plans that we have throughout the province. One of the things I was notified about in the meeting with makgoshi is that there is already a piece of land where there is already a project approved, but there is a delay with regards to funding. But we will look at it," he said.

They would discuss with the Kekana royal family, which owned some of the Hammanskraal land, how to manage the development.