LAND invasion and corruption have frustrated people who need RDP houses.
Congregations are also desperately in need of land for their churches in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.
Many churches are allegedly in possession of illegal letters that allow them to occupy land.
Nqaba Banga, the mayoral committee member for human settlements, said: “To avoid trouble, I advised all the churches in possession of those letters not to start building on those sites. Only the municipal manager has the right to issue a document authorising the handover of land.
“When we took over this municipality, we noticed that all those letters were issued during the election campaign. That promoted land invasion and a delay in the allocation of land.”
Banga plans to meet church leaders soon.
He said: “We’ll meet next month to sort out this mess. We cannot tolerate a situation where there is a church on every piece of vacant space. We will discuss how churches must qualify to get land.”
He also said he is worried that some people have sold their RDPs.
“This encourages people to invade land. Already I have been to the police and opened cases against some RDP owners.
“Some houses in NU29, Motherwell have been looted for building materials,” he said.
But Tiny Paile, the secretary of the women’s desk at the Council of Churches South Africa International, defended their position regarding the occupation of land.
She said: “We don’t set aside land for poor churches in a municipality. Only the rich and big names get land. We are desperately in need of land for our churches.”
