http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=124&art_id=vn20081111111710380C561956

‘They gave our homes away’

November 11 2008 at 02:41PM
By Mpume Madlala

Desperate Clermont residents who waited 16 years for low-cost houses say
they have resorted to using force after seeing the homes allocated to
them being given to other people.

The residents accuse the local councillor, Neli Nyanisa, of putting
people on the list for the New Germany development Harmony Heights ahead
of people whose names were on the initial housing list registered with
the department of housing.

Nyanisa has strongly denied the accusation.

Mthokozisi Zuma, the chairperson for Sanco, an organisation that looks
after residential issues, said the situation was spiralling out of
control.

“What has led to these problems is that the councillor has been putting
people who were not on the list into these houses saying that they had
been registered by her, but those names are not on the database,” he
said.

Zuma said that the matter was under investigation by the local
department of housing.

“When people who had already been given their home numbers, saw that the
houses were being taken, they started breaking into any other vacant
homes,” he said.

Nonceba Khwela, who is staying in one of the homes, said she had broken
in after seeing her allocated house already being occupied.

“What was I supposed to do, I did what everybody else did, because our
homes were being given to other people by our councillor even though we
were on the database and had documentation that those were our homes.

“We won’t move out because we deserve to be here. We patiently waited
all these years and nobody has the right to just come and take our homes
away,” she said.

Qondile Khandayo said he was beaten up during the fracas after he had
been to look for his assigned home and found that there was someone
there already. He then tried to break into two houses.

“I gave up and sat next to the house that I wanted and in no time there
were Metro Police around me,” he said.

He said they had beaten and arrested him.

Nyanisa has continued to deny she had sold homes to people. The
councillor serves as the deputy chairperson of the housing committee.

“I want them to show me the homes that they broke into, because as far
as I know, the people put into those homes are rightfully there and they
have proof,” she said.

City manager Michael Sutcliffe said if people wanted to lay a complaint
against the councillor they were more than welcome to write to him.

* This article was originally published on page 2 of Daily
News on November 11, 2008