Front page of the Daily Sun: Come and Live Here, Mabaso!

Come and live here, Mabaso!

HOMELESS people in KZN are angry – VERY angry.

They’re tired of waiting for houses that do not come…tired of not getting answers to their questions.

NOW THEY THINK THAT LOCAL OFFICIALS ARE NOT TAKING THEM SERIOUSLY ENOUGH!

Officials should leave their offices and come and see for themselves, angry squatter leaders said.

The comments of Lennox Mabaso, a spokesman for the KZN Department of Housing, were reported in the Daily Sun yesterday.

He said there was no housing backlog in KZN.

Later he explained further by saying what he actually said was that there were no half-built developments which had been abandoned by developers in KZN – as there were in other provinces.

But that did not pacify angry people.

S’bu Zikode, president of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement of South Africa, said “I challenge Mabaso and his boss, the MEC Mike Mabuyakulu, to come and spend five days and live in a shack and experience at first-hand the suffering the people have to endure!”

Zikode said there were about 500 ‘informal settlements’ in the province and 80% of these settlements are in the eThekwini region.

“The people that matter are never consulted. Decisions are taken at the ICC, Umhlanga and the Sibaya Casino. For a long time we have negotiated with the municipality and asked them to tell us how many people are on the waiting list. But no one can give us a figure!”

“We want answers to five questions. Where the houses for the homeless are to be built? When? How many? How? And what assurance do we have?”

Mabaso told Daily Sun he never claimed that there was no housing backlog.

“What I said is that we do not have any housing projects left abandoned by developers. We have checks and balances in place to ensure developers complete projects. Regarding shack settlements, our department has been dealing with a moving target.”

“People have been allocated houses but rent them out and then return and build shacks. We also have slumlords who own a number of shacks and charge rent for them.”

“We have passed the Slum Bill and this will ensure that no new slums are created. In the meantime, we will carry out surveys and then get a real number of people that need homes,” said Mabaso.

Mabaso said that since 1999 they had built close to 500 000 houses in the province.

Update: In a debate on iGagasi FM this morning Mabaso promised that he would come and live in Kennedy Road for 5 days.