31 March 2008

22 arrests since Monday 24 March

The Alexandra Vukuzenzele Crisis Committee (AVCC) residents have re-occupied houses in Alexandra Extension 7 since the 20th of March after negotiations failed to bear any fruit for the poor people of Alexandra. Twenty of the occupiers were arrested on the following Monday, 24 March, and appeared in court the following day. All defendants were released on free bail. Two comrades of the AVCC were arrested for contempt of court while in Extension 7 this past Friday, 28 March.

The houses that were built in Extension 7 were earmarked for poor residents of the township but bribery and corruption associated with the Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP) has denied them access to the houses that are legitimately theirs. They have been on the housing waiting list since 1996. When the AVCC first occupied the houses in Extension 7 on 3 September last year, sixty people were arrested for trespassing and public violence. The charges were dropped on the 28th of February 2008. Another group of twelve residents were also arrested at the same time last year on the same charges. When they appeared in the Wynberg Magistrate courts on 12 and 19 March 2008 the charges were also dropped.

With the occupation of houses and arrests in Katlehong and the recent mass evictions in the community of Delft in Cape Town, it is clear that communities’ patience with the immovable housing backlog in South Africa is exhausted. Poor working class communities can no longer wait on government’s slow delivery of sub-standard basic services and that is why the residents of Alexandra took to the streets on the 3rd September 2007.

There are no clear processes around who is going to be allocated the houses because clear consultative meetings have not been held by the ARP. This is despite the fact that the Department of Housing and the ARP claim that the recognised structure in the community is the Alexandra Development Forum where residents are supposed to air their views on the development of Alexandra. But the AVCC has tried in vain to engage with the Forum on a regular basis. It has become clear to the AVCC that the ADF is a political football field for ward councillors to dribble past issues and pass on information selectively to their members. The AVCC therefore resolved to engage directly with the housing crisis.

The construction of low-cost housing is not changing the lives of the poor in the country because the delivery of basic services is still class skewed. The rich minority are enjoying the fruits of the neo-liberal policies of the ANC-led government while the poor majority are being screwed by the non-delivery of basic services and the repeated promise of a better life for all. The situation of communities taking over housing projects in Alexandra and in many other communities across our country is a situation brought about by the implementation of neo-liberal policies in a country that is divided right down the middle between the rich and the poor.

For more details please contact Friedah Mamtolo Dlamini (arrested 28 March) @ 084 293 1512 or Caroline Phoswa @ 073 704 7247 or Silumko Radebe @ 011 333 8334