Category Archives: press_release

Solidarity: Occupation of N2 Gateway Houses by Delft Backyarders

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Press release: Occupation of N2 Gateway houses by Delft backyarders

The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign supports backyarders in Delft, who, in pain and frustration at being on housing waiting lists for years and in some cases for decades, have peacefully occupied more than 100 N2 Gateway houses in Delft. The WCAEC applauds the councillor who assisted these backyarders in this occupation and calls for no charges to be laid against him. Authorities have threatened these people with eviction at 5am on Friday 21st. The WCAEC opposes these threats and stands in solidarity with the backyarders resistance to eviction. The WCAEC particularly warns the police not to use violence against the backyarders. These houses were mostly intended by government and Thubelisha homes for residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa. But the residents of Joe Slovo do not want to move to Delft. They want government and Thubelisha to build houses for them in Joe Slovo. All this is the fiasco of the ill-thought out N2 Gateway ‘pilot project’ which was planned and is being implemented without adequate participation by the communities whom it is intended to benefit, and hence is failing at every turn.

For further information contact Mzonke Poni at 0732562036

Warning on ‘Time Bomb’ paraffin stoves

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South African Bureau of Standards
MEDIA STATEMENT

Ref: Regulatory (Electrotechnical)

Enquiries: Prince Moloi

Tel: +27 (012) 428-6242

Fax: +27 (012) 344-1568

Cell: 082 0656 719

Email: moloipt@sabs.co.za

29 October 2007

The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) Regulatory Division warns consumers to refrain from buying non-pressure paraffin stoves named Panda, produced by Tao Ying Metal (Pty) Ltd, as they do not comply with the requirements of the Compulsory Specification.

In terms of the specification, non-pressure paraffin stoves must meet safety, health and environmental standards. However Tao Ying Metal stoves meet none of the above requirements and this leaves consumer’s safety and health at risk.

On several occasions SABS warned Tao Ying Metal not to sell these paraffin stoves, as they are one of the major causes of fire hazard in the shacks and in rural communities leaving many communities displaced and further disadvantaged.

In the light that many disadvantaged communities in South African still do not have access to electricity mostly continue to use paraffin stoves. In this regard, SABS pleaded with the company to apply corrective majors, but the company deliberately failed the SABS.

What is even more disturbing about the behaviour of the company is that its officials were part of the Compulsory Specification Formulation Process. Therefore they know what to do and what not to do.

Several meetings were held with the company and legal directives were issued to the company to recall all its non-compliant products in the market, not to sell the existing stock until further notice, but the company told SABS that it has sold the stoves to Namibia and Lesotho however it has failed to produce proof of export.

It is extremely difficult for a layman on the street to identify this product with an exception that it is written Panda. To protect the consumer and the markets SABS has taken necessary legal action against the company.

Any company in possession of this product must return it to Tao Ying Metal (Pty) Ltd immediately and anyone found distributing this product after this warning will too face a legal action.

For media interviews contact:

Moses Moeletsi
Executive Director

SABS: Regulatory

082 503 2850

012-428-6069
Prince Moloi

Public Affairs & Media Specialist

SABS: Regulatory and Consumer Protection

012-428-6242

082 0656 719

Solidarity: Cape Town protest in support of Zimbabwean refugees

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Friday 12 October 2007 1pm

Press Statement for Immediate Release

Protests at Home affairs Planned

There will be a 24 hour picket outside of home affairs (the refugee home affairs beneath the high way next to the International Conference centre) in Cape Town starting at 8:30pm on Sunday the 14th Oct, where in an attempt to get attention, foreign students from UCT along with some South Africans (black and white) will be sleeping on the street along side our illegal friends- the Zimbabweans.

There will be further demonstrations in front of home affairs (the refugee home affairs beneath the high way next to the International Conference centre) at 13:00 on Monday the 15th Oct where large numbers of our PASSOP members will be coming through from the townships.

Reason in short – Home affairs has failed- the corruption has continued..

The full story-

We are not being listened to. We have continued in our attempts to be heard and the time has come for us to make sure that this issue receives the attention it deserves. The home affairs department dealing with our asylum seekers (applications) is conveniently hidden beneath the highway, on the way to the waterfront, between the international conference centre and the cranes that load container ships. The queues are unbelievable and yet no -one sees, there are people who have slept at home affairs and been in the queue from as early as 4 am for four months and yet have still not been served. Inexplicably, while these people wait in the queue, other people are served. The reason; they have clearly paid for their papers. We cannot allow for these human-rights violations to continue. There are, on average, at least 65ppl who sleep in front of home affairs daily. Some of these people have degrees and well sought after skills. They have left countries which have nothing to offer: basic rights, jobs or healthcare. Their reason for sleeping at home affairs is that they are illegal immigrants until their applications have been submitted. Yet on a weekly basis they are refused the chance/possibility of submitting their applications, and week after week they watch the bribery continue. Some do not have the money to buy their papers and the few who have the money have too much respect for the law to buy their papers, which they shouldn’t have to buy in the first place. If their papers are due then they should be given access to them.

We cannot sit back and watch illegal immigrants being treated like criminals and allow for them to be arrested and deported only to return or face a definite death not only of theirs but of their families.

Rumours have been spreading about a clamp down on illegal immigrants starting in November, the radios have been announcing that immigrants have 2 weeks to sort out or renew theirs papers, and yet home affairs even shut early (Friday the fifth) and failed to open on Saturday the 6 th.

We have seen how those employed to receive applications treat the immigrants like animals. We refuse to accept the arrests of these immigrants – it is believed that 3000apx immigrants are deported each month (mainly Zimbabweans). We had previously made a statement (29 th May), but there have been no changes.

We will protest, in a very provocative way, we will make ourselves noticed.

For any enquires contact Braam Hanekom on 0832561140

Copy of press statement on 29th May 2007

PASSOP statement on deportation of illegal immigrants and corruption of Home Affairs Department

We are completely against the detention (and ultimately the deportation) of so-called illegal immigrants amidst the rampant corruption and inefficiency of the offices of Home Affairs in dealing with the issuing of asylum-seeking and refugee documents. It has become clear that without involving themselves in acts of corruption it is impossible for immigrants to acquire the documents required for legal status in South Africa. We believe that the inefficiency of the offices dealing with the issueing of their “papers” is directly related to the common (illegal) sale of such documents. It is our opinion then that the “illegal” immigrants are people who are in the process of waiting in long queues attempting to legitimately acquire their asylum-seekers status. These illegal immigrants in many instances have tried, in vain, for many weeks, to submit their applications, arriving at the offices sometimes as early as six am and leaving when told to. They are told to return and continue to do so until eventually they are forced to “buy” their papers or they are arrested for being illegal immigrants.

We demand the following:

· A thorough investigation into the departments engaging in the corruption regarding the issuing of their “papers”

· No arrests of immigrants for being without legal status be made until such an investigation is completed

· That home affairs examine closely what attempts to legitimately acquire their legal status the 3000 plus detained “illegal immigrants” in Lindela have made before deporting them

We hope that these demands are respected by the people of South Africa, by The Department of Home Affairs, the SAPS and the Government of South Africa.

For any further enquiries contact

Braam Hanekom on 0832561140, braam@passop.co.za.

Solidarity: Joe Slovo residents due in court – in numbers….

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Joe Slovo residents will be at Cape High Court in large numbers tomorrow and protesting there on Wednesday

Monday 24 September 2007
5pm

The 6000 residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa, Cape Town will be individually handing in their legal notice of their intention to oppose the state’s application to forcibly remove them from their land.

The residents will be doing this all day tomorrow at the Cape High Court, ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. The Ministry of Housing has applied for a court order which would allow them to forcibly remove 100 families per week for the next 45 weeks, and this will be heard by the court on Wednesday. Each and every resident vowed at community meetings this week that they would oppose this application in the High Court. The law allows for each and every resident to state why they feel they should not be forcibly removed and they intend to do just that.

On Wednesday 26th September 2007, the residents will hold a mass protest outside the High Court.

For comment call the Joe Slovo Task Team directly on these numbers:

Mzwanele Zulu – 076 3852369; Mr Sepaqa – 076 9192115; Mr Mapasa – 083 7371711

The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition was disgusted to hear that the State has tried to undermine the court’s ruling by apparently already selling off the land of Joe Slovo settlement to First National Bank, allegedly for a paltry R5 million. The community has heard that FNB has now tasked Thubelisha Homes (the BEE company which builds poor quality houses across the country) with removing the current residents from the land.

The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition also calls upon the media to refrain from referring to the Joe Slovo residents as “squatters” whereas in fact they have been living on the same land for more than ten years and have established a tightly knit community and resource centre, among other amenities. CTAWC also urges the media to check back on previous articles about the area, because this community was long promised RDP houses on the land where they are living, and thus their demands for these homes are entirely legitimate.

For pictures of the road blockade (and the police attack) that bought the Joe Slovo crisis to national attention, as well as a small archive of Joe Slovo task team press statements click here and here.

Cape Town: Anti-Eviction Campaign March, 20 August

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NEWFIELDS VILLAGE RESIDENTS AEC
Press Release – Monday 20th August – 10am

9 Cape Town communities to march over City’s Housing Company’s broken promises

The march takes place tomorrow – Tuesday 21st August 2007 at 11am. From Kaisersgracht to the Civic Centre in Cape Town.

For further information please call Gary Hartzenberg ph 0723925859

Background

In the year 2000, the City of Cape Town as the senior partner, together with the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC) and funded by the National Housing Finance Corporation, built 2188 houses in nine communities all over the Metropole in areas such as Newfields Village, Hanover Park, Luyoloville, Philippi, Heideveld, Woodridge, Eastridge and Manenberg.

Upon occupation of their new homes, benficiaries discovered that they had moved into houses with major latent as well as patent defects like cracked walls, poor plumbing and constant foundational movement as houses had been built on Wetlands with no approval of plans and duplication of erf numbers, etc. The affected communities decided, after several attempts by them to get the authorities to rectify the situation, to go on mass protest action in order to address the problem at hand.

Current state of affairs

Late last year National Government mandated the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) to conduct a forensic audit of all houses built by the CTCHC, and accordingly R36 million was made available for the remedial work to be done on all the houses built. On the audit findings on the houses in question, beneficiaries found that the NHBRC had made a total mess of their task. People staying in maisonettes received an audit of people staying in a free-standing single story house; several had their defects under-stated, etc. These problems were brought to the attention to the provincial minister of housing and local government as well as the city and other stakeholders, all to no avail as up until today there was no response. Instead beneficiaries were given threatening letters over removal of ‘illegal’ structures, over boundaries and fences as well as letters of a so-called ‘payment solution’ without consultation between the City, the department of housing and the affected communities. Although a meeting has been scheduled for 16th Sept 2007 between the residents of Newfield’s Village and Minister Dyantyi to discuss the proposed payment options, the CTCHC has already sent letters to individual beneficiaries and giving them an ultimatum to respond on their 5 options. If residents do not respond in time or want a different solution, the CTCHC threaten to impose an instalment. The CTCHC knows full well that residents were given 5 minutes to peruse 30 documents and sign them before receiving their house keys. The CTCHC knows full well that residents were unfairly compelled to sign documents that the CTCHC wants to now rely on. THE CTCHC is behaving like the capitalist banks. They know full well that all that was promised in 2000 have not been delivered, such as rent being charged of R800 rather than the promised R150, R250 and R350 (the levels of the savings contributed beforehand).

The government’s claim of having built over 1 million houses since 1994 comes into sharp focus here. Are the units that were built really fit for human habitation? In the same breath, with the slow pace of delivery, will the homeless ever receive adequate housing under the current system?

All beneficiaries and their supporters will be marching to the Civic Centre in Cape Town on Tuesday 21st August 2007 to highlight their demands. A memorandum will be handed over to Councillor Ian Nielsen demanding the scrapping of all arrears and other relevant issues. The march will start at Keizergracht at 11am. The memorandum is scheduled to be handed over by 12 noon at the Civic centre.

***************************

Press Alert (from ashraf casseim aec_ash@yahoo.com.br)

Protest

There will be an action in the City of Cape Town on the 21 August 2008.This initiative was started by Eastridge Anti-Eviction Campaign also known as the Town Centre Village.

Where all residents of the Cape Town Community Housing Company (C.T.C.H.C) Village residents will be marching to the City of Cape Town to demand that all their arrears be scrapped. The list of grievances are endless and strated as early as 1999.

The march will start from Keizergracht down Darling street right into Adderly street until the city of Cape Town Civic Centre.

This action will point out that the delivery of Adequate Public Social Housing by a Private Companies does and and will not deliver social housing

for further information please contact contact:
Town Centre, Robert , 073 359 3229
Newfields Village, Gary, 072 3925859
Heideveld, Lungi, 082 510 0618
Hanover Park, Alma, 073 442 5619
Morgen’s Village, Ayesha, 076 857 2192
Stock Road, Lawrence, 073 209 2892
Woodridge, Cinthia, 079 485 2593
Luyoloville, Patrick,082 226 6467

Thank you and please feel free to inform all press.