Ministers Patricia de Lille, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi and Lindiwe Zulu during the start of the Salvokop Precinct Development Project in June 2022. Picture: Jacques Naude/African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria - The multibillion-rand Salvokop precinct development project has come under criticism from residents who expressed fears that they might be left displaced due to planned road construction across the informal settlement populated with shacks.
A non-profit organisation called Tshwane Leadership Forum, advocating for service delivery issues, raised the alarm about possible relocation after a bus depot and a pre-school were recently relocated owing to the imminent road construction.
Organisation leader Opulence Mavuso said he had been sent from pillar to post by various authorities every time he tried to enquire about the possibility of removing people from the settlement, which has existed for almost 20 years.
“Everything I know about the relocation is getting darker and gloomy,” he said.
He was concerned that most people appeared to be inactive when it came to making follow-ups on the project.
“In the long run almost all of the residents here will suffer. The pre-school and the bus depot have been moved and the fear is that we might also be relocated. It happened that both institutions that have been moved were on the side of the informal settlement in Salvokop,” Mavuso said.
According to him, moving the bus depot and the pre-school without a public notice was raising red flags about the fate of informal settlers.
“Informal settlers were informed that that section was reserved for residential houses, but now during the meeting (in March) we were told that there will be a road built right across the informal settlement,” he said.
Ward councillor Fortune Mampuru yesterday allayed fears that people would be displaced, saying no one would be thrown in the streets.
He said the government conducted an enumeration study and knew each and everyone staying in the area.
“There is a future plan to build houses there, but that is phase three of the project,” Mampuru said.
He reiterated that all residents were consulted, including those who were going to be affected by road construction.
“They are widening the road in the formal houses and no one is affected. We had almost three meetings with them,” he said.
He said consultations were also made with residents in the informal settlement, where a road construction has been planned to go through where a bus depot was located.
“Even the buses have been relocated. They are no longer in Salvokop. The only people who will be affected are the ones living where the road would be built. We are going to do shack-marking and all of those people will be addressed there,” he said.
Mampuru said there had been a community meeting in March to inform people of the project developments.
“We had a community meeting earlier this year. We visited them and then we will further consult with them. We will discuss with them and ask them what it is that they want, whether the public works department has available land and what the City of Tshwane is saying because it is part and parcel of the project, but throwing people out in the street will not happen,” he said.
Residents’ concerns came to light after an oversight visit by Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Sihle Zikalala last month.
Zikalala expressed confidence that the mixed-use development project would be completed in 2025.
Approved by the Cabinet in May 2020, the development was a collaborative project between the three spheres of government to build four government headquarters, commercial buildings and a shelter for the vulnerable.
A total development opportunity of 524 000m² was estimated to cost R18 billion for development to build four additional government head offices – the Department of Correctional Services, the Department of Higher Education and Training, the Department of Social Development and the Department of Home Affairs.
It was envisaged that the development would achieve spatial integration by bringing government departments to a central location in proximity to economic development and mixed typology residential developments for households and various income streams.
The site was selected because it is located close to a transport station that has various modes of transport to link Salvokop with the Pretoria CBD.
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