Ricky Govender gets his demolitions at Motala Heights (3 years ahead of the City’s schedule)

[fsg_gallery id=”444″]Tuesday, 31 October 2006
12:02:31 PM

SHOTS FIRED AT MOTALA HEIGHTS

– Last week the Motala Heights settlement took all necessary steps to prevent an illegal eviction. Residents signed a power of attorney form with Shanta Reddy which was given to the mayor and city manager indicating that they did not want to be moved/have their houses demolished
– But on Saturday and Sunday this weekend the municipality came and illegally demolished shacks.
– Today they are back. People have been shot and tear gassed. At least 15 houses and been smashed. Two lawyers are working right now to take the municipality to court and stop this illegal attack on the poor

Shacks Demolished at Motala Heights, Pinetown
29-10-2006

One could be forgiven for thinking that a tornado had ripped through Matola Heights shack settlement on Saturday (28 October 2006). About 20 shacks have been reduced to mangled piles of timber which their former residents pick through in order to salvage their belongings.

Yet this was no tornado, but rather the actions of the eThekwini municipality. Residents reported that at about 8:00 am on Saturday morning, about 25-30 metro security arrived driving vehicles with NDM number plates. They brought with them a further 12-15 unskilled labourers with large hammers.

Without any warning, they set about demolishing shacks in various parts of the settlements. Although they appeared to be randomly scattered, they reportedly belonged to people renting shacks, unlike others which were owner-occupied.

Shack dwellers reported that the demolition team was lead by Bhekeni Ntuli and Kumbuzile Mkhize of the Housing department, while the security team was led by Mr Mthembu.

The demolition teams cleared as many shacks as they could in a day’s work, and facilitated the relocation of some families to Nazareth housing development. Some families did not qualify for a house in Nazareth because their shack did not have a number painted on it. They were simply left homeless. Others chose not to move.

About 19 people slept either in other shacks or in the open on Saturday night. On Sunday, the settlement was filled with echoes of hammers as shacks were hastily reconstructed. The municipality visited in order to check which shacks were being rebuilt.

During the clearance it was announced that the entire settlement was to be cleared. The settlement began 30 years ago and now consists of 227 shacks. There was no indication as to when this would happen. There were also threats that the ablution block and water supply would be destroyed in order to drive away those who did not want to move. This ablution block was built by the government in 2004 and is the only sanitation other than self built pit latrines.

Many say that they are reluctant to move because Nazareth is near Marianhill in ward 16 while they are in ward 15 near Westmead. They depend on living close to their places of employment, normally as domestic workers, gardeners and in factories of Westmead. They have not been shown the place of proposed relocation and have no idea what education and other facilities there will be. There is also little clarity on who would qualify for a house there, and nothing has been provided in writing on this. Some believe that housing allocation has been corrupt.

The land on which the shack settlement is built is owned by the municipality. Many report that a neighbouring land owner, Mr Govendor, is putting pressure on the councillor, Mr Dimba, to clear the shacks. All land adjacent to the settlement is currently undeveloped. Mr Dimba told the shack dwellers recently that they must go back to the farm where they came from. They do not recall ever having been visited by their councillor.

Matola Heights settlement has recently affiliated itself with Abahlali BasemJondolo, the movement of the shackdwellers, which began in March 2006 and now has more than 30 shack settlements associated with it. It was feared that the timing of the clearance was deliberately intended to stifle attempts to get court interdicts against the demolitions. This would be recognition by the government that their actions are illegal and would not pass the legal test in a court. Legal resources have now been mobilised through the Legal Resources Centre who intend to interdict further demolitions on Monday 30 October.

The provincial housing department has recently stated its intention to eradicating all slums by 2010. A few months ago the provincial MEC for housing Mike Mabuykhulu tabled the Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act.

‘Its aim is to eradicate shack settlements by 2010 … Mabuyakhulu said he wanted the law to be passed before the end of the current financial year. He wants municipalities to employ special units similar to the so-called Red Ants – the shack settlement-clearing security guards in Gauteng which are used to demolish illegal settlements… “Our diplomatic approach is not working. We are now taking a stronger approach,” he said.’ (Mbanjwa 2006).

(see Mbanjwa, Xolani (2006) ‘KZN push for an end to slums’ Sunday Tribune. 23 April 2006)

Further information

Alson Mkhize 0827608429
Mnikelo Ndabankulu 0735656241

This press release was drafted by Richard Ballard, a senior research fellow at the School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal who visited the site on Sunday 29 October along with members of Abahlali BaseMjondolo and held discussions with affected residents.

Monday, 21 August 2006
Press Release 4 from the Motala Heights Development Committee (affiliated to Abahlali baseMjondolo)

CORRUPTION AND ARMED INTIMIDATION AS MOTALA HEIGHTS EVICTIONS CRISIS DEEPENS

On Saturday 17 June 2006 Ward Councillor Derek Dimba arrived at the Motala Heights settlement in Pinetown with municipal officials and 5 car loads of municipal security guards to mark out shacks that would then be destroyed by the militarised police Land Invasions Unit. They had probably chosen the Youth Day weekend thinking that many people would be away at their rural homes. They were wrong. The community was able to mobilise quickly and see off this first threat.

The Motala Heights Development Commitment spent the next day gathering detailed information from residents and preparing affidavits and were at the Legal Resources Centre first thing on Monday morning. They then moved on the Municipal offices in New Germany where they were able to win an unscheduled emergency meeting with Mr. Geoff Nightingale. Nightingale confirmed that the Municipality planned to move 63 families with ‘numbers’ to a new housing development at Nazareth Island and to evict the other residents. The Council’s ‘one shack = one house’ policy means that many families who are sharing shacks face eviction with no prospect of relocation. Nightingale also confirmed that Cllr Dimba had asked the Municipality to immediately destroy all new structures that had been erected. The eThekwini Municipality does not allow the construction of new shacks or the expansion or development of existing shacks. The Development Committee pointed out that all the new shacks and developments (all well made wooden cabins) had been built by long standing residents who needed more space for growing children, had got married, wanted to move out of over crowded shared shacks after finding work and so on.

On Women’s Day, 9 August 2006, Cllr Dimba returned with pistol holstered to each hip and flanked by his usual cohort of armed men. He summoned the community to a meeting where he began by gesturing to his weapons and promised to ‘chase away’ named individuals on the democratically elected committee. He then said, in a chilling echo of high apartheid language, that people in shacks without numbers would have to ‘hamba khaya’ and ‘go back where they came from’. He said that after those people with numbers were relocated to Nazareth Island on 27 August 2006 the houses of the others would be demolished.

The Motala Heights settlement lies amongst the gum tress on the hill behind Motala Heights suburb which is, in turn, just behind the many factories in Pinetown’s industrial area. It was founded in 1992 by Mr. Richard Nzuza and the residents mostly come from Zululand, the Eastern Cape and Ixopo although some are from as far away as the Free State. Almost everyone came here to work or to reunite families divided by migrant labour. Most of the men work in the nearby factories and most of the women work in the houses in the adjacent suburb. There is a school, clinic, library and shops within walking distance which means that living in Motala Heights has the tremendous benefit of radically cutting down the time and money that poor people usually have to spend on transport.

There are almost 300 shacks in the settlement. The land is owned by local tycoon Ricky Govender who has developed cottages for rent on adjacent land and also owns the local bottle store and supermarket as well as a trucking company amongst other businesses. It is rumoured that he has many government contracts too. People in the Motala Heights settlement have excellent relationships with most of the residents in formal houses. They often work in their homes and share the same taxis. The local taxi boss, just known as Leon, is widely respected in the settlement. But the conflict with the Govender family goes back to 1997 when Ricky’s father, Harry, used industrial earth moving equipment to dig up the road leading into the settlement. The shack dwellers responded by building their own road with their own tools and labour. It is now widely believed that Govender is aiming to extend his private development, including housing and a petrol station, up the hill in a large private development after the shack dwellers have been evicted. Cllr Dimba appears to report directly to Govender usually visiting him before and after his armed visits to the Motala Heights Settlement. The Housing Department have told the Motala Heights Committee that they cannot buy the land from Govender as he is demanding a completely unreasonable price. The Community is demanding the expropriation of the small section of Govender’s large land holding where they have built their community in order that there can be an upgrade where people are already living.

The 63 families scheduled to move to Nazareth Island would rather stay in Motala Heights where they are close to work, schools, the local clinic, shops and the other benefits of being near to Pinetown and where they are part of an established community. Many amongst them refused to register for the tiny badly built houses in Nazareth Island for these reasons and many also refused to register in solidarity with others who don’t have ‘a number’ and face eviction without relocation. Numerous people in the community allege that the ‘numbers’ of the people that didn’t register have been sold off to people from elsewhere, especially KwaMashu The Committee is currently making the arrangements to pursue vigorous legal action against this alleged corruption. The more than 200 families who now face eviction and the destruction of their community, their houses and their access to urban opportunity are determined to resist eviction by all means. They will explore all legal options but will also use mass mobilisation and will draw on the support of shack dwellers elsewhere to defend their homes, their community and their right to live near the city. The resistance is being organised by the democratically elected and mandated Motala Heights Development Committee which is affiliated to the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement.

For comment on the particular situation confronted by Motala Heights please contact the following members of the Motala Heights Development Committee:

Mr Bhekuyise Ngcobo 0769212891, Chair
Mrs Lewisa Motha 0781760088, Deputy Chair
Mr Alson Mkhize, 0827608427
Mr Sizwe Nkwanyana 0839951351

For comment on the general situation confronted by shack dwellers in the eThekwini Municipality as they face the onslaught of the Municipality’s looming mass evictions and forced removals under its World Bank/UN designed ‘slum clearance’ programme that aims to ‘clear the slums by 2010’ please contact the following members of the Abahlali baseMjondolo secretariat.

Mr S’bu Zikode 0835470474, Chair
Mr Mnikelo Ndabankulu 073565241, Media Liason
Ms Fikile Nkosi 0842501446

Mzuyanda Ngthobane (24), Nkosinathi Gabella (28) and Slethiwe Ngcobo (3) all confront eviction from their home in the Motala Heights Settlement. They are pictured outside Mr Ngthobane’s home. Mr Ngthobane is a long time resident of Motala Heights and has just built his own wooden home after years of sharing a shack with 6 others.

Mr. Richard Nzuza, founder of the Motala Heights Settlement.
“I will not be moved. I will die here.”