Abahlali rises up to stop corruption and forced removals
Abahlali baseLanga TRA - 5 July 2012
Abahlali
baseMjondolo Western Cape Press Statement
Yesterday,
Abahlali baseMjondolo youth took physical action to block
the Housing Development Agency from moving residents of Joe
Slovo Informal Settlement into Langa Temporary Relocation
Area calling the process corrupt and at the expense of
current residents of the TRA.
The SANCO aligned TRA
committee is selling TRA structures and houses with the
tacit support of the HDA. Many of the current residents of
the TRA have also been pushed off the housing lists and
large-extended families are being counted as single families
and therefore slated for eviction from the TRA once their
relatives are allocated homes.
The action by our youth
was a last resort as housing officials have ignored our
complaints and refuse to consult with us in good
faith.
Because of our action, the HDA and the TRA
committee has been forced to call a meeting with us for
tomorrow at 6pm inside Langa TRA Creche to resolve the
crisis.
Background
On 15 January
2005, Joe Slovo informal settlement and adjacent hostels
were devastated by a shack fire seriously injuring seven
people and leaving about 10,000 people homeless. Some of the
fire victims were sent to TRAs in the far away township
Delft and were promised houses back in Langa after the
completion of Phase 1 of the N2 Gateway housing project. The
rest were put in Langa Temporary Relocation Area and also
promised houses either in Joe Slovo or in Delft.
After
the managing agent, Thubelisha Homes (now renamed the
Housing Development Agency) and the Housing Department
reneged on their promise of accommodating Joe Slovo
residents in Phase 1 and built unaffordable rental flats in
its place, the remaining 15,000 residents of Joe Slovo rose
up in defiance of their own pending removal to TRAs in
Delft.
Joe Slovo's inspiring struggle which included
numerous mega marches in the city centre and an effective
road blockade of the N2 freeway, eventually turned public
opinion against the evictions and Lindiwe Sisulu's arrogance. Even though
they lost a Concourt case on the matter, the Housing
Department eventually capitulated – they didn't have the
political capital to forcibly remove 15,000
people.
Langa TRA – the old
committee
The Langa TRA was built in 2005 to
house the Joe Slovo and hostel fire victims temporarily
until they could all be accommodated in the N2 Gateway
housing project.
That same year, the community elected
the first community committee in the TRA with Mr Mbambalala
as its chairperson. However, soon the committee in charge
became involved in corruption and they refused to call
community meetings and submit to the mandate of the people.
When confronted by the people who elected him, Mr Mbambalala
refused to step down.
In 2011, after it emerged that the
committee was illegally selling TRA structures to outsiders,
the community broke down five shacks. In June 2011, the
community effectively removed Mr Mbambalala and the rest of
the committee by force. However, the newly formed HDA
refused to acknowledge the wishes of the people and
continued to work with this old committee. Eventually,
without community support, Mbambalala stopped being
active.
Langa TRA – the corruption of the
housing list
In July 2011, the community elected
a new committee with SANCO member Zukisani Sibunzi as its
chairperson. They were handed a housing list with most of us
on it. In June 2012, the HDA handed the new committee a list
of people who would be allocated houses in Delft and houses
were allocated immediately to the people on the list.
However, this was a completely different list than the
original list we received in July 2011.
We are now
furious that all of a sudden we will not be receiving the
houses in Delft that we had been promised.
Many TRA
residents seem to have been removed from the housing list by
HDA who says we do not qualify because of dubious
technicalities such as missing birth certificates or
problematic/traditional marriage licenses. Once residents
bring the necessary documents, however, the HDA still
declines the residents' applications and refuses to
investigate the matter.
Instead, it seems that the
houses are being irregularly allocated to people who don't
qualify and often already have houses of their
own.
More corruption in the TRA
There
is also now evidence of corruption on the new TRA committee.
Committee members are selling and allocating TRAs to people
who are not from either the TRA or from the Joe Slovo
community. Abahlali members have surfaced with first-hand
accounts and audio evidence that some of these structures
are being sold illegally by committee chairperson Zukisani.
There is also evidence that some families who are connected
to the committee are getting allocated two TRA structures
instead of one. For instance, Zukisani currently has two
shacks in the TRA.
As Abahlali baseLanga TRA, we are
furious because we are not being consulted and this new
committee is also acting without our mandate.
Our
leftover youth
It has now emerged that because
people are going to Delft, there are new open spaces in the
TRAs. Our TRA shacks consist of lots multi-family
households, original Joe Slovo fire victims, who are cramped
into these 24square meter shacks. The Housing Department is
supposed to allocate one TRA structure per qualifying
individual of age (unless they are married). However, they
are lumping our extended families all into one.
Since the
HDA is now bringing in residents of Joe Slovo Informal
Settlement into the TRAs to make way for the rest of the N2
Gateway housing project, they are attempting to remove
everyone out of the TRA including the extended families
(mostly youth) who do not yet qualify for the RDP houses in
Delft. The HDA says that our youth will be forced to set up
their own shacks in some informal settlement or be dumped in
another TRA in Delft.
Our youth and other leftovers of
the project feel this is unfair and are refusing to leave
the TRA calling on HDA and the Housing Department to
allocate some of the empty structures for their
needs.
After being ignored, community takes
action
The HDA is moving people from Joe Slovo
into the TRA at the expense of the residents of the TRA
without even bothering to consult us.
As a result, the
community of Abahlali baseMjondolo has decided to stop the
trucks from bringing in the belongings of Joe Slovo
residents saying that these are our TRA structures and we
will be left homeless if Joe Slovo residents are moved into
the TRA.
Yesterday, we twice prevented trucks from
moving people's belongings into the TRA. The police and
furious HDA officials showed up and after some heated
discussions, they were compelled to agree to meet with
Abahlali today at 6pm at the Langa TRA creche. As a sign of
good faith, residents then let in the one moving truck of
Joe Slovo residents whose shacks had already been broken
down by the HDA but refused to let anyone new in until our
demands are met and the crisis is resolved.
We call on
support and solidarity with our following
demands.
Our demands
• We demand an
independent investigation into why we as qualifying poor
shack-dwelling families are being declined by the HDA. We
also demand that the HDA work to resolve all technical
barriers for residents and that all qualifying residents
immediately be put back on the housing list.
• We
demand that each qualifying family living in the TRA who
does not receive a RDP house, keep their TRA structure or
get allocated one rather than be forcibly removed from the
TRA.
• We demand an independent investigation into
corruption in the community by the HDA and the SANCO aligned
Langa TRA committee. We demand an investigation into the
people who are being allocated two houses and the people who
are selling these houses.
--
Uyishayile!
Abahlali baseMjondolo,
together with with Landless People's Movement (Gauteng), the
Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal) and the Western Cape
Anti-Eviction Campaign, is part of the Poor People's
Alliance - a national network of democratic membership based
poor people's
movements.
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Abahlali
baseMjondolo http://www.abahlali.org
Khayelitsha Struggles http://www.khayelitshastruggles.com/
Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign http://antieviction.org.za/
To contact Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban please email abahlalibasemjondolo [at] telkom.sa.net or phone 031 - 304 6420
To contact Abahlali baseMjondolo in Cape Town please email abmwesterncape [at] abahlali.org or phone Mzonke Poni on 073 246 2036
To contact the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, also in Cape Town, email aec [at] antieviction.org.za or phone Ashraf Cassiem at 076 186 1408.
To contact the Landless People's Movement in Gauteng email Bongani Xezwi at bongani.xezwi [at] gmail.com or phone Maureen Mnisi on 082 337 4514.
To contact the Rural Network in KwaZulu-Natal contact email ruralnetwork.kzn[ at] gmail.com or phone Reverend Mavuso on 072 279 2634.
AbM Facebook Group:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=19659923423
AEC Facebook Group:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Cape-Anti-Eviction-Campaign-AEC/8432492420
Abahlali
baseMjondolo Solidarity Campaign Network UK
http://abmsolidaritygroup.blogspot.com/
Abahlali baseMjondolo Solidarity Group Namibia http://respectnamibia.ning.com/groups/group/show?id=3153753%3AGroup%3A6063&xg_source=msg_mes_group
Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo in Italy http://clandestino.carta.org/category/mondiali
Solidarity with the Poor People's Alliance in Germany http://akkrise.wordpress.com/sudafrika/
Dear
Mandela
http://www.dearmandela.com/
Abahlali is also in solidarity with other poor people's movements including:
The Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign http://chicagoantieviction.org/
The Combined Harare Resident's Association http://www.chra.co.zw/
The London Coalition Against Poverty http://www.lcap.org.uk/
The Mandela Park Backyarders http://mpbackyarders.org.za/
Picture the Homeless http://www.picturethehomeless.org/
The
South Durban Community Environmental Alliance
http://www.sdcea.co.za/
Take Back the Land http://takebacktheland.org/
Land & Freedom!
--
For more, please visit the website of
the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
at:
www.antieviction.org.za and follow us on
www.twitter.com/antieviction
Visit Abahlali baseMjondolo at www.abahlali.org and www.khayelitshastruggles.com
The Poor People's
Alliance: Abahlali baseMjondolo, together with with Landless
People's Movement (Gauteng), the Rural Network
(KwaZulu-Natal) and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign,
is part of the Poor People's Alliance - a unfunded national
network of democratic membership based poor people's
movements.