Pretoria - The Gauteng Human Settlements Department says it will assign senior departmental officials to meet with protesters in Reiger Park to listen to their concerns.
Community members have since last night been protesting in the East Rand area, blocking roads with burning tyres and rocks.
The residents are protesting against alleged housing allocation irregularities. They believe RDP houses are being allocated to foreign nationals.
“The policy that regulates the allocation of houses and human settlements units to communities only allocates these to South African citizens and not foreign nationals.
“As the department we comply with this policy at all times,” said the department in a statement.
The department said sometimes beneficiaries sell their houses to foreign nationals. “We know that some beneficiaries do this. Where our people have knowledge of corruption, they must give us evidence so that we deal with the issue,” the department said.
It said it is committed to resolving the issues related to corruption around allocation of houses.
“Where there has been evidence of wrong doing, we have dealt with the issues. Communities have a responsibility to report corruption and illegal allocation of houses to foreign nationals and people who don’t qualify.
“Our laws mandate us to allocate houses to South African citizens and not foreign nationals,” the department said. – SAnews.gov.za
