Category Archives: Bronwyn Gerretsen

Mercury: Court halts landlord’s threats

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http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4069771

The Mercury

Court halts landlord’s threats

October 08, 2007 Edition 2

BRONWYN GERRETSEN

Three Motala Heights residents are sleeping happily at night, secure in the knowledge that their landlord cannot bulldoze their homes.

They were recently granted an urgent interdict in the Durban High Court, which prevents their landlord, Ricky Govender, from making good on his promise to destroy their homes if they did not vacate them.

Govender has been trying to evict the residents from his land for the past five years as he wants to develop it. However, the residents claim they have nowhere to go as the government has not provided houses for them.

They allege that Govender has intimidated them by dumping waste from his glass factory almost literally on their doorsteps, burning plastic waste near their homes and threatening to bulldoze their homes.

One resident also alleges that Govender threatened to have her killed at a cost of R50.

Govender wants to put up a high-cost housing development in the area and is adamant he is within his rights to have the tenants evicted.

In his founding affidavit, James Pillay said Govender had threatened to bulldoze his home, which he shared with his wife, and also the home of Mallie Govender, another resident, if they did not vacate the houses by the end of September.

Harassing

Pillay and his wife, Gonum, built their home 25 years ago, while Mallie Govender built her house 16 years ago. She has been living in Motala Heights for the past 32 years.

They had paid rent to the land owner since moving on to the property. However, in 2002 they were informed that Govender had bought the land and that the rent should be paid to him. The rent is currently R150 a month.

In September 2007, Pillay was asked to meet Govender at the gates of his property.

“He insisted that I move out as he intended to construct factories on the property. I reiterated that I simply could not move.

“At that point, he called his brothers, who came out of the house and started harassing me and pushing me.

“They said that I had better leave by the end of September 2007, or else they would throw everything out and bulldoze (my) house,” the affidavit states.

Pillay stated that he was afraid Govender would be true to his word as he owned two bulldozers.

In August, Govender bulldozed the banana trees which grew alongside Mallie Govender’s house.

The interdict ensures that Govender will now have to follow correct court procedures to evict the tenants from their houses.

http://www.thepost.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4095484

The Post

intheCOURTS

October 24, 2007 Edition 1

A MOTALA Heights (near Pinetown) businessman, Rickey Govender, has been restrained via an interim order granted by Judge Leona Theron in the Durban High Court, from evicting a couple and a woman living on his land, without a court order, and from assaulting and harassing them and from bulldozing the two homes.

The applicants were James Pillay and his wife Gonum and Mallie Govender, all of Lot 19, Motala Heights. They claimed they had been living in wood and iron homes there for many years and had paid Govender rent. James Pillay alleged Govender had informed them to vacate the premises because he wanted to construct businesses on the land.

Pillay claimed he, his wife and Mallie Govender had refused to vacate the premises because they had nowhere else to go to. The matter was on the roll again yesterday.

Two die in Kennedy Road shack fire

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South Africa

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3806952
April 30, 2007 Edition 1

BRONWYN GERRETSEN

The ground was a mass of black ash, and the stench of burned flesh and charred debris filled the air at the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban yesterday, just hours after a fire destroyed 100 shacks and killed two people.

Residents believe the fire was started by a candle in a shack at the bottom of a hill on Saturday night. The blaze spread rapidly, engulfing the homes of more than 200 people and destroying everything but the clothes on their backs.

The two who died in the blaze were identified as Ephraime Phungula and Ben Mhlakwana, a 31-year-old mother of two – the youngest of whom is a 6-month-old baby.

Mhlakwana’s sister, Bernadita Parkies, 30, said her sister had saved her baby by throwing him on to the roof of a shack, where he had been rescued by his father, before going back into the shack to fetch something and being caught in the blaze.

Yusuf Bheki Simelane, a 30-year-old security guard, was at work when the fire broke out. His wife was at home and his children, aged 3 and 13, were at their grandmother’s house in a neighbouring area.

“When I got home, I found that everything was burnt . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said.

Yesterday, some residents were already constructing the walls of new homes.

Sibongile Vilani, 57, said she had lost everything in the fire, including her ID book, and would have to ask some of the men in the community if they would rebuild her home for her.

The homeless will be housed in the community centre until their homes are rebuilt.

Residents told The Mercury that they were awaiting the arrival of food parcels from the municipality’s disaster management branch.

With winter around the corner, more shack fires can be expected throughout the province as people make increased use of heaters and candles to keep warm.

Billy Keeves, manager of the disaster management office, said one of the municipality’s long-term plans was the eradication of informal settlements and the establishment of proper housing.

bronwyn.gerretsen@inl.co.za