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Orlando West residents have warned landlords to evict illegal immigrants renting and operating spaza shops in the township as the community moves to counter illegal migration.
The demand was made during a community engagement held at Uncle Tom’s Hall in Orlando West on Friday morning. The meeting was convened by Johannesburg ward 39 councillor Lefa Molise and attended by officials from the department of home affairs, the police, Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD), landlords and spaza shop owners.
Resident and street representative Sara Chauke said residents had noticed chaos in areas outside their ward and that was why they had called for the SAPS, JMPD and home affairs department to engage the community to discuss how to address the situation.
“We will call it Mabahambe (Let them go) situation so that our community knows what are the pros and cons,” Chauke said.
Molise said his office would request law enforcement to lead the operation of verifying and removing undocumented tenants from the area.
“Allow us to present a memorandum of demands, a memorandum that will demand what needs to be done, and before the end of July we want to see operation.”
Molise said the decision comes after mounting demands from residents that landlords verify their tenants for proper documentation of IDs, passports or permits and to report those without papers.
The home affairs department used the opportunity to inform residents about permitted measures to deal with the issue and asked them to desist from conducting verification operations. The department emphasised the importance of working with law enforcement agencies.
“Community members have to report cases to us if there are illegal foreign nationals operating businesses, then together with JMPD and SAPS we will deal with the matter,” said a home affairs representative.
Simon Setlabe, a spaza shop owner, is among the vocal community members calling for undocumented shop owners to leave the area.
“Here in Orlando West we don’t want them, we want to open our own shops in the area. They are surrounding me, they don’t pay tax, I pay tax and that is why their prices are low and mine are a bit high. Landlords with illegal immigrants must give them notice to leave,” Setlabe said.
TimesLIVE
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