Sowetan

450 families at Marry Me settlement living in limbo

City says land is private and not being formalised

The City of Tshwane says Marry Me informal settlement will not be formalised as it is on private land.

In August 2022, GroundUp reported that about 300 families at the settlement in Pretoria would “soon” receive services, such as water and sanitation from the city.

Ward 93 councillor Rabasotho Masupha of the ANC said at the time that the formalisat­ion of the settlement had already started.

But two years later, city spokespers­on Lindela Mashigo says the settlement is on private land and will not be formalised. He said the city only provides “rudimentar­y services” to informal settlement­s on state land in line with its constituti­onal obligation­s.

When GroundUp visited Marry Me this month, we found mounds of garbage at informal dump sites, dirt roads heavily eroded and people wholly dependent on unreliable and illegal water and electricit­y

connection­s.

The occupiers have asked the city to relocate them. Most live on a mountain slope which is very cold in winter, prone to flash floods in summer and infested with snakes.

The settlement, establishe­d in 2015, got its unusual name because most of the first occupants were young and unmarried people who arrived in Pretoria

to seek jobs.

Juliet Mohlakoana said she moved here with her boyfriend and their two children in 2019.

“We need services from the municipali­ty even though this area is not formalised.”

Since 2022, the settlement has grown, and now has about 450 households. New arrivals, such as Kabelo Nkuna, who

came in January, have started erecting shacks close to the railway line.

Asked what had happened, Masupha said “formalisat­ion is a very long process, but we are pushing it”.

He denied his previous statement, that “all the basic services will be provided once the process is concluded”.

“No, I never said that,” Masupha

now says. “I said we were still in the process of requesting the municipali­ty to formalise Marry Me.

“The first thing is to engage the executive like the [the mayoral committee members], the council committees and ask them. And we are still requesting them.”

He did not respond to other questions.