Scores of residents from Villa liza staged a peaceful “mother of all shutdowns” Protest as they brought all township operations to a halt and marched from the dusty squatter camp of Freedom Park to Vosloorus Customer Care Centre in a bid to hand over a memorandum of their grievances.
Exorbitant water bills, unnotified power cuts, and the issuing of title deeds were some of the factors that forced the peace-loving residents of Villa Liza to protest, this publication has been told.
One of the residents who preferred anonymity said, “Alive to our struggles, and the reality of our situation, we locate ourselves in the global sphere and claim as our space that which no one else can lay title to. The houses we are living in we don’t have title deeds but others do, why are we always left behind?”.
Speaking to Ekurhuleni News another protester said, “South Africa is our birthright; our motherland, and the only thing that belongs to us and we belong to. We need houses we are tired of living in shacks and during winter times more lives are to be lost due to shacks going ablaze.”
Many a time it is in the nature for protests to turn violent but Villa Liza residents proved that the new normal is peace rather than vandalizing infrastructure.
One of the authorities said, “We thank the residents of Villa Liza for showing maturity when engaging in such a peaceful manner.”
The issue of load-shedding has brought a lot of small businesses to their knees and life tougher than ever expected.
“All my meat is spoiled l was making a living by selling meat now I am defeated,” said one business owner from the township.
“We remain architects of our children’s destiny. And for us to keep the future time insight we need to find each other. We can not tolerate this anymore,” added another devastated resident.
Speaking to this publication, one 86-year-old granny said, ” sometimes l sleep without eating since l don’t have a gas stove and cant fetch firewood on my own now.”
It is also said that the majority of people from Villa liza are not paying for electricity and efforts of reaching the councillor for comment were fin vain as his phone was not reachable by the time of publication.
By Emmanuel Kaitano
