Daily Sun: Offical to Join the Poor

A TOP local government official has accepted the challenge to live for a week in a so-called informal settlement.

Lennox Mabaso, spokesman for the KwaZulu-Natal housing department says he’s ready.

The challenge to come and live in a shack to see what it was really like came from the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement of South Africa which represents shack dwellers around the country.

Mabaso had been challenged to stay for five days in the Kennedy Road shacks on the western outskirts of Durban.

“I have no problem going to the informal settlements. In my student days I lived at Cato Crest informal settlement. So this is nothing new to me”, said the official.

He added that he still has many friends living in informal settlements – and regularly visits them.

But Abahlali baseMjondolo president S’bu Zikode said he would wait and see. “I’m glad he chose to come and spend some time at the settlement. It will give him a first hand account of our people’s hardships,” said Zikode.

* Daily Sun will accompany Mabaso to the Kennedy Road shacks and keep readers up to date with how he gets on.