Category Archives: Khayelitsha

More protests tomorrow at New Khayelitsha Hospital

12 January 2012

More protests tomorrow at New Khayelitsha Hospital

Tomorrow at 12pm, Khayelitsha residents will be meeting with KDF (Khayelitsha Development Forum) and the Khayelitsha Hospital officials in their quest to reverse what they believe is a fraudulent recruitment process.

KDF and Hospital officials are expected to address residents in a mass meeting outside the hospital tomorrow afternoon at 12pm.

This meeting is a follow up meeting after Tuesday’s meeting where residents had an opportunity to meet KDF & officials for the first time regarding the employment at the new hospital.

The residents demand are as follow:

We demand to know! Residents of Khayelitsha do not know anything about the Hospital. We have not been consulted. We know nothing about employment or anything else regarding the building and management of the place.

We demand consultation! We will prevent anyone from coming to work on-site until the officials come down and addressed us.

We demand the redo of the recruitment process allowing for a proper democratic process to unfold under the proper supervision of elected Khayelitsha community members.

We demand that at least 60% of employees be sourced from the area close to the hospital (including essential services) and the remainder sourced from around Khayelitsha.

We demand clarity as to why job vacancies seem to already have been filled before 229 jobs advertised in Cape Argus on the 08th November 2011 and the 329 jobs advertised on City Vision and Vukani.

We demand that the MEC for health address our grievances with immediate effect.

We invite all Khayelitsha residents including those that applied for positions.

See you outside hospital tomorrow

For more information please contact:

Mr. Mabhelandile on 0838861831
Mr. Khaya on 0780241683

Khayelitsha residents arrested for protest outside new Khayelitsha Hospital

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Khayelitsha residents arrested for protest outside new Khayelitsha Hospital

10 January 2011
Statement on behalf of protesting Khayelitsha residents

Earlier this morning a group of Khayelitsha residents showed up in front of the brand new Khayelitsha Hopsital to protest against the refusal of hospital authorities to hire local people from amongst the recent estimated 70,000 job applications. Estimates are that only 2%-10% of staff hired at the hospital are from the Khayelitsha area.

Almost 100 people converged in front of the hospital. They closed the road and burned tyres in order to show government and hospital management that they are serious about their demands. Often, when we protest in quieter ways, we get ignored. We have realised that we must engage in peaceful civil disobedience to get our voices heard. Yesterday, they refused to take us seriously. Burning tyres is a peaceful but active way for us to force government to negotiate with us when they think that they can just ignore us.

In reaction to our protest, the police arrived and began shooting people indiscriminately with rubber bullets. They have no also arrested approximately 6 residents who are now being held at the police station.

The government officials in charge of employment at the hospital has now agreed to meet with us at 3pm regarding our demands. However, before we can negotiate with him about jobs at the hospital, we demand the release of all protesters as they were engaged in peaceful acts of civil disobedience. They did not break the law by protesting and their actions are protected by the Constitution and the Gatherings Act.

For more information, contact Khaya at 0780241683

New Khayelitsha Hospital under threat: Residents vow to protest and will prevent employees from working on site tomorrow until t

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New Khayelitsha Hospital under threat: Residents vow to protest and will prevent employees from working on site tomorrow until their grievances are heard!

8 January 2012
Press statement on behalf of Khayelitsha residents

From 6am tomorrow morning, Khayelitsha residents will be protesting outside the new Khayelitsha Hospital. Tonight, we will be mobilising to that effect. We have had enough! Kwanele!

The Community of Mandela Park (Ward 94 & 97) gathered this afternoon to find out the truth behind the devastating rumors regarding employment at the new Khayelitsha Hospital. Residents have accused Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF) leadership and Ward Councillors of failing to give proper direction in terms of employment opportunities for the area. These politicians seem to only interested in grabbing available opportunities for themselves.

Why do we have to protest in order to be heard? Said one community member during the public meeting: “aren’t we supposed to get information directly from our leaders?”

It has become clear that the KDF and the local Ward Development Forums never held any public meetings concerning employment at the new hospital. Employers merely advertised job openings on extremely short notice after most of the positions had already been filled. As a result, the whole process was exclusionary and fraudulent.

Mandela Park residents are saying that the process was improper since they only heard about the employment opportunities in the newspaper on last minute. We should have been properly informed through local structures so that our cv’s did not merely end up in dustbins.

An insider who is already working at the hospital since last year told other residents at today’s meeting about official opening of the hospital and that an overwhelming number of employees were not from Khayelitsha but from other areas outside the township. Estimates are that only 2%-10% of employees are actually from Khayelitsha. Other groups are significantly overrepresented.

Residents said they want to go directly to the hospital management and hear for themselves why this is the case. We are unemployed and we have had enough of being lied to by politicians. We now want hospital officials and MEC for health to come and tell us what is going on.

The following are our demands:

We demand consultation! We will prevent anyone from coming to work on-site until the officials come down and addressed us.

We demand the redo of the recruitment process allowing for a proper democratic process to unfold under the proper supervision of elected Khayelitsha community members.

We demand that at least 60% of employees be sourced from the area close to the hospital (including essential services) and the remainder source from around Khayelitsha.

We demand clarity as to why job vacancies seem to already have been filled before 229 jobs advertised in Cape Argus on the 08th November 2011 and the 329 jobs advertised on City Vision and Vukani.

We demand that the MEC for health address our grievances with immediate effect.

See you outside Khayelitsha tomorrow morning. Kwanele! Enough is Genoeg!

For more information contact:

Mr. Xolani Krweqe 0711303477
Mrs. Kulati 0730720618
Mr. Sibongile Mhlahlo 0835112942

West Cape News: Protest sparked by attempt to cut illegal electricity connections

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http://westcapenews.com/?p=3248

Protest sparked by attempt to cut illegal electricity connections

AN attempt by Eskom to disconnect illegal electricity connections in Khayelitsha’s Island Informal Settlement sparked violent protests yesterday.

A car was set alight by a petrol bomb and a shipping container was pushed into the busy Lansdowne Road throughfare as about 200 residents scattered rubbish, burnt tyres and stoned passing cars.

The protests, which started mid-morning and only began to simmer down in the late afternoon came after letters from Eskom were delivered to shacks in the settlement yesterday, ordering residents to disconnect their illegal electricity lines or face a fine of R5 000.

A web of wires illegally connecting the shacks to nearby RDP houses hangs over the informal settlement. Wires also run across the across the roads and are buried in shallow trenches in the sand.

But residents say they are not prepared to live without electricity and the City and Eskom need to provide proper connections in their area.

“We connected our lines in Site C’s D-section and some in TR section because Eskom doesn’t want to give us (electricity) boxes,” said resident Nomathamsanqa Kape, 36.

“Since 1989 we have been using illegal connections, every time when we ask Eskom for electricity they give us false promises. I’ve been living in this place since 1989, we never got any service delivery. We were only trying to help ourselves because Eskom doesn’t care,” said Kape.

She said Eskom handed out letters on Wednesday giving residents 24 hours notice to disconnect illegal wiring.

She said residents were prepared to pay for legally supplied electricity as they already paid R200 per month on average to people whose houses they connected to.

“We want power not police,” said resident Athandwe Ndlela, 45.

“We won’t rest until Eskom gives us answers. I have been living in this place for 15 years using illegal connections.”

He said he agreed with Eskom that illegal connections were dangerous, but they had no choice.

“People are dying because of it. Even my brother died last year because of illegal connections. The City of Cape Town and Eskom must provide us with electricity and we won’t stop until that happens.”

Provincial police spokesperson November Filander said two people had been arrested in connection with the protests and charged with public violence. — Nombulelo Damba

Eskom and the City of Cape Town in another Brutal Attack on the Poor

Friday, 16 September 2011
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Press Statement

Eskom and the City of Cape Town in another Brutal Attack on the Poor

Yesterday Eskom and the City of Cape Town descended on RR Section in Khayelitsha with a heavy police presence. They removed safe insulated cables that people were running from shacks with legal electricity boxes into shacks without electricity. The people who were running the cables into their shacks were paying those with legal electricity to use their power. These negotiated connections between neighbours were not illegal. It is therefore the police, and Eskom and the City of Cape Town, who engaged in criminal actions (theft and assault) yesterday.

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