Joe Slovo community and Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign mass march on FNB this Wed 28 Nov

Thousands of people will march on FNB Bank in Cape Town this Wednesday 28th November 2007 at 10am.

The communities who are marching include Joe Slovo, Langa; Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers; QQ Section; Mandela Park; Site C Khayelitsha; Tafelsig; Blue Downs; Hanover Park; Gympie Street; Newfields Village.

The organisations are marching on First National Bank because the bank has bought the land currently housing the Joe Slovo community, knowing full well that this community is refusing to move from the place where they have stayed for the past 10 or more years. FNB has also contracted with government to build houses costing R150 - R300 000. This means that FNB is directly complicit in the forced removal of the citizens of Joe Slovo. We do not accept their argument that they only bought the land because they are working in partnership with the government to deliver to the people. This is a bald-faced lie as they know that 6000 people live in Joe Slovo now and yet they are building only a few hundred expensive houses which will not even accommodate 1% of the current community, who are overwhelmingly jobless and cannot afford them anyway.

All the communities are against the privatised, poorly built housing and the partnership between the ANC, DA and the Banks with regards to housing. These housing projects are plaguing the country currently and are making the lives of the poor a misery because they are so badly built that they force the poor to spend what little money they have on repairs. After this the banks/government hike the rents and when the poor cannot pay, having spent their money on repairing the houses, they are evicted.

The march starts at 9am at Cape Town station on Wednesday 28th November.

A FULL PRESS STATEMENT WILL BE ISSUED LATER TODAY.

This will be part of a continuing campaign against the bank.

For comment call:
Mzwanele Zulu – Joe Slovo Task Team representative – 076 385 2369
Mzonke Poni – QQ Section, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign – 073 2562036
Ashraf Cassiem – Tafelsig, Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign – 076 1861408
Mncedisi Twala – Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers, WC AEC - 078 5808646
Gary Hartzenberg – Newfields Village, WC AEC – 072 3925859