Category Archives: Kwanele Sosibo

M&G: Costly sports events ruin the poor, again

Kwanele Sosibo, Mail & Guardian 

In the years preceding the Fifa 2010 World Cup, Durban residents living in informal settlements adjacent to road projects and sporting facilities were removed with the promise of better accommodation.

Fast forward to 2015, and the same thing is going to happen again. With the Commonwealth Games scheduled for 2022, members of shack-dwellers’ movement Abahlali base-Mjondolo, originating in Durban, are saying that the decision to make parts of the Cornubia development a Commonwealth Games village happened without consulting the people expecting that housing. Continue reading

M&G: Eviction ruling spurs on shack dwellers

Kwanele Sosibo, Mail & Guardian

Abahlali baseMjondolo, emboldened by its victory over the eThekwini municipality that stopped it from evicting shack residents without court approval, has taken its cause to Gauteng.

Abahlali spokesperson Ndabo Mzimela said the movement had been invited to visit high-density shacklands such as those in Germiston, Diepsloot and Soweto. It also wanted to “make public presentations about the movement so people don’t push personal agendas under its banner”.

This week the high court in Durban ruled in favour of Abahlali in a case that dates back to 2013, when the eThekwini municipality and the provincial human settlement department sought, and was granted, an interim order to halt invasions of government-owned land earmarked for housing. The provincial government estimated that more than 1 000 pieces of land were invaded at the time. Continue reading

M&G: Battle lines drawn over eThekwini land

Kwanele Sosibo, Mail & Guardian

The KwaZulu-Natal department of human settlements and public works this week said it would forge ahead with plans to establish its own land invasion control unit. This follows a Durban high court ruling that forces the departments and the eThekwini municipality to obtain court orders to carry out evictions. The unit would survey and protect all land belonging to the department that has been earmarked for housing. There is already such a unit policing land owned by the municipality.

Mbulelo Baloyi, spokesperson for human settlements MEC Ravi Pillay said on Thursday they had already begun the process of identifying a service provider. Continue reading

M&G: Shack dwellers movement offers voting bloc for living conditions guarantee

http://mg.co.za/article/2014-04-28-56-shack-dwellers-movement-considers-change-of-pace

Kwanele Sosibo

The apolitical Abahlali baseMjondolo is considering backing a political party for the first time since 2006, but their clout comes at a price.

For the first time since 2006, the shack dwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, is not staging a "no land, no house, no vote" campaign as it has done for several editions of UnFreedom Day – an unofficial South African holiday – that it commemorates each year on April 28.

A few days before this year's event at the Siyanda informal settlement in KwaMashu, Durban, Abahlali launched a talk shop that invited political parties to give presentations on why they should get Abahlali's vote instead.

The event, according to spokesperson Mnikelo Ndabankulu, was somewhat of a success, drawing the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Democratic Alliance (DA), National Freedom Party (NFP) and the Workers and Socialist Party.

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M&G: Mothotlung water shortages shrouded in murk

http://mg.co.za/article/2014-01-16-brits-water-shortages-shrouded-in-murk

by Kwanele Sosibo & Zain Ebrahim

"Mr President, we would also like to take a shower," a tipsy resident of Mothotlung, a water-starved township outside Brits, shouted to no one in particular earlier this week. The convoy containing Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, national police commissioner Riah Phiyega and Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa was weaving out of Mothotlung, the scene of a deadly water protest, and residents were feeling placated rather than heard.

This week, three people were confirmed dead after residents took to the streets of Damonsville and Mothotlung to protest water shortages, a service they said has been sporadic since August last year.

Continue reading