Joe Slovo burns, smoulders, erupts

On Monday morning, hundreds of homeless people from the Joe Slovo squatter camp in Cape Town blockaded the N2 highway during peak-hour traffic, venting their anger and frustration with government for not providing houses. In response, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said:

“Residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement must decide whether they wish to cooperate with government. In this way they will qualify for housing opportunities. If they choose not to cooperate, they will be removed completely from all housing waiting lists,”.

When the minister was asked in the national assembly on Tuesday whether she could remove people from the housing waiting list, she said: “I’ve already done so.”

It is unclear which housing list the minister is referring to and legal experts say that the minister “doesn’t have the authority” to remove people from the list.

Pierre de Vos, a constitutional law lecturer from the University of the Western Cape, said it was “untenable and intolerable” for the minister to make such a threat.

“The Constitutional Court says people have a right to houses and it’s the government’s responsibility to provide houses. She can’t just unilaterally take people off the waiting list. There has to be a hearing and you have to hear the protesters’ side of the story. You can’t take away people’s rights without listening to their side of the story,” De Vos said. “You can’t punish people for opposing the government’s policy -- if you do, you are abusing your power.”

De Vos warned that there were “numerous cases of people removed from social grant lists -- every time this was challenged, government lost the case and the courts had harsh words for those officials who unilaterally take away people’s benefits”.

Director General of Housing Itumeleng Kotsoane said he had received an instruction from Sisulu “to implement processes that will lead to reprioritisation of government housing waiting lists”.

Steve Kahanovitz of the Legal Resource Centre asked: “What powers is Sisulu going to use to remove people from the housing waiting list? If you take administrative action, you’re supposed to have a hearing. She can make the threats, but does she control the list and have the power in order to make these threats?”

Dan Plato, mayoral committee member for housing in the city, said the city has a housing list with 3,060 names on it. “Minister Sisulu can’t interfere and dictate to the city council to take names off this list. The national ministry has its own list, but there’s supposed to be only one list,” Plato said.

Provincial Housing Minister Richard Dyanti’s spokesperson, Vusi Tshose, said he “doesn’t know” which list Sisulu was referring to.

“I don’t know where the housing waiting list is -- we don’t have a list,” Tshose said.

Sisulu’s spokesperson, Monwabisi Maclean, said there was a housing waiting list, but it was confidential. “It has people’s ID numbers on it -- the national housing department has a consolidated housing waiting list and it’s this list from which people will be removed,” he said.

Manyenzeke Sopaqa, who has lived in Joe Slovo for 14 years, said government “must bring their bulldozers and their guns -- we will die here. They don’t talk to us and they make false promises. Where is this housing list that they’re now threatening us with? We want to know their plans. We want to see their lists and we want a say in where we live.”

- M&G