Category Archives: corruption

Admission of corruption by city official not a surprise.

Monday, 11 February 2019
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Admission of corruption by city official not a surprise.

It has been reported in the media that Sibusiso Vilane, deputy head for sanitation operations in the eThekwini Municipality, has admitted to approving payments totalling R36 million to four companies for providing sanitation to shack settlements even though they did not in fact provide the services for which they were paid.

When one lives in a shack settlement life is hard. There are often no basic services and when they are provided there is never enough for the entire community.  Continue reading →

Seven Wards to Protest Against Mining in Mbizana on Monday

13 May 2016
ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO PRESS STATEMENT

Seven Wards to Protest Against Mining in Mbizana on Monday

On Monday the 16th of May 2016, Abahlali baseZilalini Mbizana in the Eastern Cape, who are part of Abahlali BaseMjondolo Movement SA, will hold a protest march which will start at Bulala Sports Ground at 08:00 am and proceed to the Rumdel Construction premises at Pele Pele Bus Stop where the officials from Rumdel Construction, representatives from the Department of Public Works and representatives from the Mbizana Municipality are expected to receive a memorandum of demands. Continue reading →

The Transit Camp is a Form of Social Control

Published in The Mercury as ‘The Dynamics of Informal Housing’ on 12 December 2015.

The Transit Camp is a Form of Social Control

Richard Pithouse

Development is often held up as the answer to some of our most pressing social problems. Corruption is often seen as a key threat to attaining the efficient ‘delivery’ of developmental gains. But development and corruption are often – although of course not always – phenomena best understood as strategies for securing political containment. Continue reading →

The Mercury: R31m ‘insult’ has residents fuming

Sihle Manda, The Mercury

Durban – Large families crammed into a controversial temporary housing project in Durban have reacted with disbelief that their tiny 2m x 2m shacks cost R35 000 each, describing living conditions there as “inhumane”.

Speaking to The Mercury at the weekend, several residents at the Kennedy Road informal settlement said the price tag on their homes was “a lie” and an insult.

The city built the transit camp last year after hundreds of shacks were gutted in a fire that left thousands homeless. Continue reading →

Mercury: Durban’s R35 000 shack shame

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/durban-s-r35-000-shack-shame-1.1955561#.VmViEXYrLDd

Sihle Manda, The Mercury

Durban – A damning forensic investigation has found that city officials fraudulently colluded with bidders who eventually spent about R35 000 per shoddy 2m x 2m room in a 700-unit temporary housing project.

The price of the unit is roughly R10 000 less than what it would have cost the city to build a fully fledged low-cost house. It would have cost the city about R7 000 to buy a similar-sized wendy house and from R4 000 to R6 000 to buy a corrugated iron zozo hut. Continue reading →