Reject City of Cape Town Flood intervention strategy

Sunday 7 August 2011

Reject City of Cape Town Flood intervention strategy

The current city of Cape Town flood intervention strategy is an insult to the poor, and Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape rejects it.

We are very disapointed by the current flood intervention strategy of city of Cape Town, they capitalised on desperation of poor people within the city. The fact that peoples houses are flooded that does not mean people are hungry or they must be taken advantage by those in power. People don’t need food but need houses.

For the past few days the city of Cape Town has been distributing dirty blankets, loaf of breads and 2L of amasi to floods victims. Last month we have invited Patricia De Lille to come and address us on her current flood intervention strategy and we have stated clearly to her that we reject the current city’s flood intervention strategy as it means nothing but insulting the poor and she decided not to come. Giving people 2L of amasi and loaf of bread does not make the problem go away.

Also it is sad to see confused ward councillors like Monde Nqulwana dancing in a tune of city of Cape town by facilitating the process, rather than defending the interest of the poor.

furthermore we note that Helen Zille, Patricia De Lille including Monde Nqulwana they can’t sleep with these dirty blankets that they are distributing to poo people.

And we call on City of Cape Town to rethink their flood intervention strategy rather than insulting poor people, in so doing we call up on the city to establish a disaster management task team made up by affected people, community based organizations, and relevant officials. The sole purpose of this task team should be looking for short term and long term solutions and to come up with proper and relevant intervention strategies with clear timelines.

For comment please call Mzonke Poni
Chairperson of Abahlali beseMjondolo Western Cape
073 2562 036
www.khayelitshastruggles.com
twitter: @mzonkep