Cape Argus: National call to boycott FNB

Cape Argus 9 October 2007

National call to boycott FNB

By Lavern de Vries

The Anti-Eviction Campaign is sounding a national call to all First National Bank (FNB) clients to close their accounts and use other banking institutions in solidarity with the thousands of people in Joe Slovo who face eviction from their homes.

Last month, the national Department of Housing, housing management agent Thubelisha Homes, and MEC for Local Government and Housing Richard Dyantyi were granted an interim order by the Cape High Court to move 4 500 households to temporary homes in Delft.

The land occupied by the Joe Slovo residents has been earmarked for the next phase of the N2 Gateway housing project.

Residents are irate at the prospect of bonded homes, funded by FNB, being built in the area, and have resorted to mass action to express their dissatisfaction.

Anyone “who feels for the people of Joe Slovo” has been called on to boycott one of the country’s leading financial institutions.

Anti-Eviction Campaign spokesperson Gary Hartzenberg told the Cape Argus that Joe Slovo leaders and other interested parties would meet this week to discuss more mass action and agree to echo the request for the national boycott.

This would be part of a double pronged approach to “bring the minister and FNB to their senses”.

“We believe that with FNB’s involvement, the government is privatising housing delivery. We are telling the people that the same people who have a hand in their evictions are the ones they are banking with.

“We hope the prospect of FNB losing clients will make them reconsider their stance.”

With an estimated clientele of six million, FNB is unlikely to lose much revenue unless the appeal for action is widely supported.

Marius Marais, the chief executive officer of FNB’s housing finance department, said: “Obviously it is not great to hear that we have been targeted like this.

“I don’t understand why we are being criticised because we are not involved in moving the residents.”

Marais said FNB had agreed to partner the national Department of Housing during the second phase of the project, which included the construction of 600 “affordable housing units” that would be sold for prices between R200 000 and R300 000.

The intention was to provide houses for people who earned salaries of between R2 000 and R3 000, Marais said.

“All we wanted to do was to assist in easing the housing backlog by creating affordable homes.”

Hartzenberg compared the proposed evictions with the forced removals from District Six.

“Our people cannot afford their ‘affordable houses’.

“The residents of the N2 Gateway project who are already settled in can barely afford the R1 050 rental.

“What they are hoping to do is break up a community to relocate to an area where they are far from work so that they can build what they think are affordable houses.

“This smacks of capitalism and is reminiscent of the Group Areas Act, except that this is done in a supposedly free and democratic society.”

Marais said the completion of the houses depended on the resolution of “legal issues” and the process of moving people should be dealt with by the Department of Housing.

The department could not be reached for comment.

The Joe Slovo residents are to give the high court reasons why the department should not be given a final order. The matter is to be heard in December.

• This article was originally published on page 4 of The Cape Argus on October 09, 2007

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