Abahlali Basemjondolo slams Govt over service delivery
Informal settlement dwellers, Abahlali Basemjondolo around Durban have accused government of neglecting them in terms of service delivery. The organisation held a women’s month event at Newlands West near Durban.
They say government’s lack of service delivery to informal settlement dwellers range from lack of clean water supply to general development. Chairperson of the Kwa Mashu branch Busisiwe Mdlalose has appealed to government to attend to their plight.
“The major complaint we have is the lack of service delivery coming to the community. They try to convince us to doing this and this although nothing is done yet.”
Meanwhile, about 40 families will tonight spend the seventh night out in the cold after their houses were demolished at a farm outside Tzaneen in Limpopo. Community representative Anna Kgatle says children have not been attending school since they were evicted on Monday.
The adults, most of whom are farm workers and hawkers, have also not been working. The Greater Tzaneen Municipality was granted a court order to evict the families. The municipality alleges they are foreign nationals.
Kgatle says the Department of Rural Development has promised to find them alternative accommodation tomorrow. “We feel so much pain, we don’t even know what to do. When it all started they promised that they were going to give a us a portion of the farm for us to reside in. Now they are saying that they’ll build us RDP houses. How do you demolish someone’s 5 roomed house and build them a RDP house? Now we don’t bath, we don’t eat, our children don’t go to school. We just sit out here, rain falls on us, the sun heats on us. It’s all the same.”