Shack dwellers to give council ultimatum

nathi.olifant@inl.co.za
This article was originally published on page 4 of The Mercury on
September 04, 2006

Shack dwellers to give council ultimatum

September 04 2006 at 08:51AM

By Nathi Olifant

THE gloves look set to come off between the eThekwini Municipality and
Abahlali baseMjondolo (the shack dwellers’ movement) about the council’s
apparent refusal to disclose information relating to the proposed
upgrade and relocation drive aimed at ridding the municipal area of
slums.

The shack dwellers will on Monday present Durban City Manager Mike
Sutcliffe with an ultimatum to provide them with the information they
require within 30 days, or they will go to court about the matter.

At issue is the public-private partnership between the municipality and
Moreland Developments to build low-cost houses for 20 000 families on
prime Tongaat-Hulett owned land, north of Durban.

The R10-billion project was announced by Mayor Obed Mlaba last year. The
shack dwellers feel the council has been evasive and secretive on the
issue since and have completed a detailed application for information
from Sutcliffe in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
The organisation will hand the document to Sutcliffe on Monday.

The shack dwellers have indicated that they would be compelled to take
Sutcliffe to court should there be no response after 30 days.

Abahlali deputy president Philani Zungu said they had sought the
services of legal minds – including lawyers from the Freedom of
Expression Institute and the Open Democracy Advice Centre.

“You really cannot keep people in limbo and this has been dragging on
for a long time. We feel it’s about time there is some movement on the
issue,” he said.

Moreland Director T C Chetty confirmed last Monday that no development
had begun on the proposed site, but said that his organisation and the
municipality were engaging in the necessary processes of consultation
with all stakeholders. This was confirmed by the Chairman of the
Housing, Cleansing, Solid Waste and Human Resources Department, S’bu
Gumede, who said that the project was on track.