GAUTENG Local Government and Housing MEC Humphrey Mmemezi says hundreds of families living on dangerous dolomitic land will be forcibly removed

Dolomite is a carbonate rock type notorious because it dissolves slowly over time, leading to subsurface cavities which then cause sinkholes.

Mmemezi spent yesterday showing the media the effects of living on dolomitic land and emphasised the need for communities to be educated on the subject so that they were not misled into protesting to have development on the land.

This was in the wake of protests in Thembelihle, near Lenasia, last week where the community refused to be relocated to neighbouring Vlakfontein.

Mmemezi said the situation in Thembelihle was "annoying because residents were relocating, about 1000 families to date, but after the elections instigators in the community frustrated the process".

"We do not want forced removals, we are pleading with the people to co-operate," he said.

Mmemezi's departmental officials have said that about a quarter of Gauteng is on dolomitic land, which includes a third of the development in the province - 764 urban areas, translating to about five million people, many of whom live in about 110 affected informal settlements.

Over the years geologists have recorded about 2,600 sinkholes, some of which have damaged homes and property at an estimated loss of more than R1,5 billion.