Visit http://www.khayelitshastruggles.com/ for ongoing updates on the Macassar Village situation.

Abahlali on New Mayor for City of Cape Town and Housing MEC for the Western Cape

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the western cape welcomes the appointment of Madikizela as the new housing MEC of the western cape, while we welcome it but we are also clear as Abahlali that Madikizela will just be the face that represent MEC for housing for the Western Cape and we believe that Zille will be the one that will make and take crucial decisions about housing crisis within the Western Cape and Madikizela is just there to implement those decision.

That is also the same with the City of Cape, Dan Plato who performed very bad while he was the head of service delivery for the city and now become the new mayor for the city is also not given the job by Zille because of competence but because he is one of Zille’s loyalist and he will be please to take orders from his madam and implement them.

Event for Wednesday the 13th May 2007

The newly formed branch of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape by backyard dwellers at Macassar Village will be having a cleaning campaign of the vacant land that is nearby the area along N2 next to Shell garage (when heading to Somerset West from Khayelitsha with N2).

Three weeks back the backyard dwellers of the area tried to occupy the land and they were intimidated by the police and members of Metro police and their building material was confiscated.

Tomorrow the backyard dwellers will clean the land with a view to show the Local and Provincial government that there is a plenty of land to build houses for the people of Macassar at Macassar.

As the members of Abahlali baseMjondolo we are going to make sure that each an every day we are going to use that land into our own advantage until government decides to build houses for the people of Macassar and we are prepared to make things easier for them by creating a community from below.

Every day at 18:00 more than 100 homeless people gathers at this piece land to discuss issues that affects us such as high rents (which starts from R 350 to R 600 per month, just for putting a shack at the back of the house) that we are paying to the owners of the houses and other issues that affects us.

Tomorrow we’ll gather at 10: 00 am

For comments: please contact Mzonke Poni the Chairperson of ABM Western Cape

Or Theliwe Macekiswana 083 248 1658 or Ronell 073 775 5132