Thursday – November 3, 2005 3:22 PM

The eThekwini Metro has been steadily removing basic services from informal settlements. A policy decision has been taken stop the provision of pre-paid electricity altogether. There are also instances where the Metro has stopped cleaning out pitlatrines thereby effectively making them unusable. (In Kennedy Road this has been overturned after mass marches on the local councillor). In some places (e.g. Quarry Road) portable toilets have simply been removed leaving people with no sanitation of any sort. Yesterday Pamery Ridge (at the bottom of Shannon Drive in Reservoir Hills) had their water disconnected. This is yet another act of direct aggression towards shack dwellers from the eThekweni Metro that could cost lives. Imagine raising a child without water throughout the whole day in the Durban summer water… Imagine if AIDS, as it does, produces diarrhea and you simply can’t wash all day…As usual no one even bothered to inform the people of the decision. When the local Co!
uncillor, Jayraj Bachu, was challenged today he said that the water had to be turned off because people were ‘abusing it’ as consumption had gone up from 2000l to 5000l. It was pointed out to Bachu that water consumption had gone up because the settlement had in fact grown from 50 families to over 200 families in this time. He was unrepentant.

And so many officials and politicians go on and on about there being a ‘third force’ behind the shack dwellers movement. They think that this is a matter for the SAPS and the NIA. They don’t realise that is is the utter inhumanity of their own polices that produces resistance.

For more information or comment contact Pilani, from Pamery Ridge, on 0729629312.