Thursday, October 27 2005

Councilor Bachu’s office currently occupied

Councilior Jayraj Bachu’s office, 574 Clare Road, Clare Estate is currently under occupation by residents of Quarry Road informal settlement. The office was occupied early this morning and the Quarry Road Development Commitee are committed to maintaining the occupation until Councillor Bachu hands over they keys to his office.

Over a thousand people marched on Bachu on 4 October this year. Their memorandum was as follows:

A MEMORANDUM OF DEMANDS: TUESDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2005

We the people of Ward 23, democrats and loyal citizens of the Republic of South Africa, note that this country is rich because of the theft of our land and because of our work for which we get very little pay from those who are rich. We are not recognized by our government for whom we voted. For too long our communities have survived in conditions that are intolerable. We have been promised many things and these promised have never been fulfilled. We now see that all they want is for us to vote for them. We cannot and will not continue to suffer the way that we do and so we have united behind the following demands:

* Our toilets have been taken away and we demand that they are returned within 5 days.
* We demand that houses are built for us and that they are built here in Clare Estate and not elsewhere. We will resist forced removals. We will not be evicted from the city and dumped in rural areas.
* We demand that Jayraj Bachu resign as councilor of Ward 23 within two weeks. We demand that he hand over the keys of his office to us as the sign of his resignation. We would like to make it clear that if Bachu does not resign then we, ourselves, will declare that Ward 23 does not have a councilor.

For further information or comment on the occupation please contact William Bobore on 0733803026 or Angelina Mosiea on 0762921833

Supporters are welcome to join the occupation.

Residents from Quarry Road, as well as 11 other settlements in Reservoir Hills and Clare Estate, will also be attending the memorial service for Mhlengi Khumalo at the Kennedy Road settlement at 6:00 pm.m this Friday. Mhlengi, a one year old child, died last Saturday after being very badly burnt in a fire at Kennedy Road. This was the third fire in Kennedy Road this month and Mhlengi is the 6th person to have died in shack fires since the eThekwini Metro took a policy decision to stop the electricification of informal settlements in 2001. It is quite clear that the Metro is withholding essential life sustaining services from informal settlements in a cruel and deadly attempt to force shack dwellers to accept ‘relocation’ the the rural periphery of the Metro. Residents of Quarry Road have even had their portable toilets removed.

HAWU! HAWU!
BATHENGISA NGATHI!

Hamba Kahle Mhlengi Khumalo
Ugesi, umhlaba, nezindlu ngabe kuyiphephisile impilo yakhe.