Category Archives: Nosipho Mngoma

Daily News: We will vote – but not ANC: Abahlali

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/we-will-vote-but-not-anc-abahlali-1.1681690#.U2qGCvmSzY4

Nosipho Mngoma

Durban – Shackdweller movement Abahlali Basemjondolo will be taking to the polls for the first time in its nine-year existence, in a bid to topple the ANC.

Speaking at their Unfreedom Day Rally at the Siyanda Informal Settlement in KwaMashu on Monday, president Sbu Zikode announced that the movement would abandon their No Land, No House, No Vote campaign and cast a “strategic vote” in the May 7 elections.

The movement, which boasts a membership of thousands in 84 branches around KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, has previously boycotted elections, saying voting only gave power to those who oppressed them.

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Daily News: Shack dwellers head for ConCourt

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/shack-dwellers-head-for-concourt-1.1646675#.Uv3qf2KSx1U

Nosipho Mngoma

Durban – Durban shack dwellers who have been evicted and whose homes have been demolished more than 20 times have taken their fight to the highest court in the land.

Residents of Madlala Village in Lamontville, joined by shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo as friends of the court, made representations before the Constitutional Court yesterday to have a Durban High Court order preventing invasion and/or occupation on 9.5km of land around Durban declared unconstitutional.

Their arguments, made by their representatives from the Legal Resource Centre and Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (Seri), were based on section 26 (3) of the Bill of Rights. It states: “No one may be evicted from their home, or have their home demolished, without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances. No legislation may permit arbitrary evictions.”

In March the Durban High Court granted the KZN MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works, Ravi Pillay, a provisional order authorising the eThekwini Municipality and the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, to take all reasonable steps to “prevent persons from invading, occupying and or erecting structures on certain land, remove any materials placed by any person on the land and dismantle or demolish any structures that may be constructed on the property”.

The dwellers claim the order was used to remove them from Madlala Village and was also used to remove residents from Cato Crest. These were backyard shack dwellers who had previously lived in the backyards of main shack residents.

When the main dwellings were demarcated for housing, the backyard shack dwellers were not allocated housing and took up residence on a nearby piece of land owned by the department.

They were evicted from this land by the Municipal Land Invasion Control Unit in the presence of police.

When it came time for the provisional order to be confirmed, the Madlala Village residents launched an application to oppose, represented by the Legal Resource Centre.

They claimed that the order effectively granted blanket permission to evict people and for their property to be demolished without a court order or taking the specific circumstances into consideration.

This was dismissed by the high court, on the grounds that the order was aimed at preventing land invasions. The order was confirmed.

After a failed application for leave to appeal against this High Court decision, the residents approached the Supreme Court of Appeal, which also dismissed their application. Abahlali baseMjondolo joined the Constitutional Court bid as friends of the court.

Acting for Abahlali, Seri’s Tashwill Esterhuizen said the MEC was using the order to give effect to unlawful evictions and gave police and the unit “unfettered discretion”.

“That is a violation of the rule of law. It’s unconstitutional.”

Esterhuizen said they also argued before the Constitutional Court that the order “was granted against the whole world” as it was not directed against a specific respondent.

The opposition to the application, by the city, MEC and minister, was based on their averment that no relief was sought or granted against the Madlala Village residents since the purpose of the order was to prevent land invasions from the date it was granted.

They also argue that section 26 (3) may be limited where persons invade land illegally in order to coerce the State into providing housing for them on a preferential basis.

Judgment was reserved.

 

Daily News: Durban warned about land invasions

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/durban-warned-about-land-invasions-1.1508062#.UX96OqIyZvI

Durban warned about land invasions

By NOSIPHO MNGOMA

Durban – Durban’s shack dwellers are becoming impatient at the slow pace of low-cost home building, warning the city that they will continue to occupy land until they are provided with proper housing.

This is according to the shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali Basemjondolo, which was reacting to news that the eThekwini Municipality had built only 2 300 out of 9 500 houses targeted for the 2012/13 financial year.

At a finance and procurement meeting last week, it emerged that the city had spent only 58 percent of its housing budget allocation as at March 31. With the financial year ending in June, the city is unlikely to meet its target of building the remaining houses.

Abahlali staged a rally near the Kennedy Road informal settlement on Sunday to air its dissatisfaction with the state of affairs.

Its chairman, Sbu Zikode, said the poor were being left out of the new South Africa.

“We are not free when we still live in slums and shanty towns, when we have no water or electricity,” he said.

Zikode also called for the release of the Manase report, which contains the findings of a forensic investigation into the city’s finances.

He accused the city of hiding corruption which was stopping “us from getting houses and being truly free”.

The DA’s housing spokes-man in KwaZulu-Natal, George Mari, said the municipality had failed to deliver on its housing undertaking despite having lowered its targets. “The rate of delivery was (initially) 16 000 houses,” he said. “It fell over the years but they still can’t meet their targets.”

Mari said the absence of leadership in the city’s housing department was at the heart of the housing crisis.

He said since the resignation of housing head Cogi Pather and the deputy city manager for procurement and infrastructure, Derek Naidoo, “the department is not capacitated enough to meet its targets”. The two were among those named in the damning Manase report.

Mari said the void created by the departures of Pather and Naidoo needed to be filled urgently. He also criticised the city’s housing system, calling it flawed. “Planning was not done well enough in advance. For example, the procurement of land could be done earlier to curb delays,” he said.

The spokesman for KZN Department of Human Settlements, Mbulelo Baloyi, agreed that the Manase report had had an impact on the city’s delivery of houses.

“The Manase report came down heavy on section 36 (of the municipality’s supply chain management policy),” he said. “This section allows for deviation from procurement processes in case of an emergency, among other circumstances.”

Baloyi said the municipality was now “very cautious” despite the provincial housing department not seeing “anything wrong with Section 36. As long as everything was above board, section 36 circumvents delays and expedites the process of delivery”.

He added that more than 400 of the province’s 600 informal settlements were in eThekwini. “The city is faced with a heavy housing burden which it may not meet in the current financial year.”

The housing budget was allocated based on the city’s targets for the year, Baloyi said, adding that should the city not meet its target, a recovery plan would have to be submitted detailing how “they are going to satisfy the intention of the allocated funds”.

He said it was possible for projects to overlap into the following financial year, but as far as the department was concerned, there could be no compromise on service delivery because there were beneficiaries awaiting houses.’