Category Archives: Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape

Residents of Joe Slovo and Langa TRA erupt in protest against corrupt housing officials and community leaders

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Abahlali baseMjondolo kwaLanga TRA
Press Statement – 6 September 2012
Venue: Mass meeting at Zone 30, Joe Slovo
Date: 6 September 2012
Time: 18h00

Residents of Joe Slovo together with Abahlali baseMjonodolo kwaLanga TRA protested tonight against corrupt Housing Development Agency project managers who are working with community committees in Joe Slovo and the TRA to illegally sell houses and TRA structures in the N2 Gateway housing project. We have evidence of corruption by Tami and also by Bukiwe, both high up HDA officials. Many community members have come forward with this evidence.

Today, we protested will the Joe Slovo community who called on the leadership of Joe Slovo to explain themselves. They refused to come to the community meeting. So the community decided to go to the leaders and force them to address our grievances. After a three hour meeting, Sifiso Mapasa from the committee promised to come to a community mass meeting at 18h00 tomorrow, the 7th of September, at Zone 30 park, Joe Slovo. We expect as many as 1,000 angry residents to attend this meeting. We are calling on the HDA to work with us to go door to door and verify each and every person who has received a house or TRA.

Heads must roll for the corruption that has kept us homeless and in shacks.

Media and supporters are invited to our meeting at 6pm.

For more information, contact:

Cindy at 0760866690 (Langa TRA)
Tumi at 0835363604 (Langa TRA)
Busisiwe at 0734961654 (Joe Slovo shack settlement)

Joe Slovo residents protest today, furious at HDA corruption

Press Statement for Abahlali baseMjondolo KwaLanga
6 September 2012

Joe Slovo residents will be protesting in Langa outside the newly built N2 Gateway houses this morning from 8am onwards. Media and other supporters are requested to attend.

Abahlali kwaLanga Temporary Relocation Area (TRA) have been fighting their own battles against corruption by committee members and the Housing Development Agency (HDA) with regard to the allocation of TRAs and RDP houses for residents. Now, it seems that Joe Slovo residents in Langa are also furious at their own community leadership and the HDA.

Yesterday we found out that they accuse HDA of selling the new houses built for Joe Slovo residents to outsiders who are not from the community. They also accuse their own leadership of making sure that they are the first ones to received housing in this phase of the N2 Gateway housing project – before anyone else from the community receives their long promised houses.

If residents’ accusations are true, it would mean that the entire N2 Gateway project is once again hopelessly corrupt. (Remember the previous attempted forced removal of Joe Slovo residents to Delft and the corruption in housing allocation in Delft communities such as Tsunami?)

Representatives from Abahlali baseMjondolo KwaLanga TRA will be joining Joe Slovo residents this morning in solidarity and to find out what exactly their grievances are. We will see if we can make common cause with our brothers and sisters in Joe Slovo.

For more information, contact:

Tumi @ 0835363604

Housing Development Agency trying to illegally evict resident in Langa TRA – today

31 August 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Press Statement

Housing Development Agency trying to illegally evict resident in Langa TRA – today

For months, the local residents committee in Langa Temporary Relocation Area has been illegally selling government built shacks. Many of the people buying the shacks already have alternative accomodation and are doing it in the hopes that they will 'cut the line' and be allocated a RDP house. They don't need a TRA structure. This corruption has been supported by the Housing Development Agency and we now have evidence that at least one member is directly involved in the corruption taking place. On top of that, HDA apparently has decided to demolish some of the TRA structures – we don’t know why because they refuse to communicate this to us.

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Open Letter: ‘Langa housing projects a mess of corruption and mismanagement’

'Langa housing projects a mess of corruption and mismanagement'

To MEC for Human Settlements, Bonginkosi Madikiza
To Operations Manager of the N2 Gateway project for HDA, Bosco Khoza
To Cape Town Mayor, Patricia de Lille

Attached you will find a letter from the provincial executive of Abahlali baseMjondolo detailing some of our concerns and grievances. The situation in Langa is a ticking time-bomb. We hope that you will come meet with us as soon as possible to address them rather than pass the buck to someone else.

Forward with the struggle of the poor, forward!

Thembelani Maqwazima (AbM General Secretary) @ 0712604119

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Request for engagement by Mayor de Lille with Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape

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Request for engagement by Mayor de Lille with Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape

Dear Executive Mayor Patricia de Lille,

Please see the attached letter from the provincial executive of Abahlali baseMjondolo. We request that you come visit Langa Temporary Relocation Area urgently to address the evictions and misallocation of housing in the area.

Sincerely,

On behalf of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape:

Thembelani Maqwazimo (General Secretary) – 0712604119
Mbongeni Mkhaliphi (Chairperson) – 0769816945
Cindy Ketani (Abahlali baseLanga TRA) – 0760866690

Cape Times: Woman loses home to intruder

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http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/woman-loses-home-to-intruder-1.1343815#.UAa5eGEzBlE

Woman loses home to intruder

July 18 2012 at 09:32am
By Kwanele Butana

Thandeka Ngcelwane, who suffers from epilepsy, was allocated a government-built temporary house in Langa Temporary Relocation Area (TRA) on June 29. She moved in with her belongings.

However, while she was away from her new home for a few days to visit her brother last week, people broke in and put someone else in the house.

When Ngcelwane returned on Friday she found another woman in her home and her belongings allegedly removed from the house.

This left Ngcelwane homeless because her old shack in Joe Slovo, where she used to stay, had been demolished to make way for a housing development.

According to Cindy Ketani, acting chairwoman of Abahlali baseMjondolo in Langa, it was the local TRA committee which authorised Ngcelwane’s ”illegal eviction”.

However, TRA committee chairman Zukisani Sibunzi denied his committee had a hand in it and said the TRA residents took a decision at a general meeting on Thursday that all vacant houses must be occupied by victims of the 2005 shack fires in Joe Slovo.

Sibunzi said that his committee did not allocate houses but was monitoring the allocation process as well as helping the Housing Development Agency (HDA) officials to contact residents who were relocated to the TRA.

On that evening, a woman moved into Ngcelwane’s house.

Ketani maintained the woman told the local residents, including members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, that she had received permission from the community to occupy the house.

Ketani said Abahlali baseMjondolo was calling for a verification process of all TRA residents to determine whether they were the legal occupants because of a “widespread” illegal sale of houses.

“We have approached the HDA but our phone calls and messages have been continuously ignored even though this is an emergency.

“The HDA seems not to want to address the matter, which could be easily resolved,” said Ketani.

Ngcelwane spends daytime at Ketani’s two-roomed house, but said she sleeps at her brother’s house or at her cousin’s place.

She said she had not been able to get medication from the clinic to treat her epilepsy, because she was overwhelmed by her efforts to get her house back.

Bosco Khoza, an operations manager at HDA, said the matter was “gravely concerning if indeed true”.

The Cape Times has seen the HDA permit issued to Ngcelwane that confirms that her house, unit 59, had been allocated to her.

“Our team will be attending to the matter to ascertain the true status and rectify accordingly,” said Khoza.

He promised to give an update to the Cape Times on Wednesday.

At the time of going to print, Khoza had not replied to questions about the agency’s housing allocation procedure and, specifically, what role the TRA committee played in the allocation of houses in the area.

Attempts to speak to the area’s ward councillor, Mayenzeke Sopaqa, were futile as he did not return messages left by the Cape Times.

The house was locked when the Cape Times visited the area this week, and the woman now living in the home could not be reached for comment on the issue.